SF 751 
.36 



P 




Common Sense 
Treatment 

Farm ^Inimals 







^H£ WORLD'S GREATLbT FARM f^P-^JJ/' 



<i^^. 




By Dr. C. D. Smead 



COMMON SENSE 
TREATMENT • 



OF 



FARM ANIMALS 



BY 



C. D. SMEAD, V. S., 

VETERINARY EDITOR 



OF 



THE NATIONAL 
STOCKMAN AND FARMER 

PITTSBURGH, PA. 



COPYRIGHT. 1911, BY 

The Stockman-Farmer Publishing Co. 

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA 






©CI.A3034'J9 



c 




FOREWORD. 



As a preface to what the following pages may contain I de- 
sire to say: My intentions are not to make veterinarians of the 
readers of this little book. Neither is it my design to make of 
it a class book for students of veterinary science, nor to make it 
what may be strictly called a scientific work. Yet what its pages 
contain will be based on scientific facts. My desire is to so 
instruct the host of my Stockman friends who have from time 
to time sought my advice as to enable them in cases of emergency 
to do something toward saving the lives of their animals when 
no veterinarian is to be had. For several years I have been so- 
licited by my Stockman friends to write a book they could refer 
to in the management of their animals so as to avoid sickness 
among them and treat the more common troubles. It is therefore 
to them especially that I dedicate this little book and I hope that 
long after I have passed to the Great Unknown some of them 
may refer to it as a friend in time of need. 

Most cordially yours, 

C. D. SMEAD. 



[Photographs by F. O. Sibley, Milfnrd, N. Y.'] 
3 



CHAF»XER I. 



SOME OF THE PRII\CIPAL CAUSES OF DISEASE. 

In the study of animal diseases and the best means of treat- 
ing them the all-important thing is, so far as possible, to learn 
the cause. Having learned the cause, we have knowledge of how 
best to treat it successfully, and more than this we learn how to 
prevent the aisease, which is most important of all. As the student 
and practitioner of veterinary medicine and surgery finds on the 
farms of the country, from one ocean to the other, diseases among 
domestic animals he finds that not less than fifty per cent of them 
have been caused by lack of knowledge of feeding the young ani- 
mals from birth to maturity, or if not always lack of knowledge, 
a neglect of the growing colt, calf, lamb, pig or chicken so that 
it cannot grow up into a strong, vigorous animal. Hence with 
lack of constitutional vigor to stand work (if working animals), 
or feeding if dairy, beef, pork or mutton animals, they are not 
only deficient as workers, milkers or feeders, but they are con- 
stantly subject to diseases of a certain class from which they 
would have been immune had they been properly fed so as to 
Tiave maintained a healthy, strong digestion. Witll a strong diges- 
tion we always find the whole physical system strong, barring of 
course some inherent weakness or deformity. 

It is not our purpose to deal specifically with kinds of food, 
or of their combination into so-called balanced rations, but to 
treat this part of the subject in a general way. Thus we can 
safely bank on this: Milk is a product that never as yet has 
been supplanted by any other known food or combination of 
foods that science has been able to find. A human infant cannot 
exist for any considerable length of time except as milk is furnished 
it for sustenance. Neither can a little colt, calf, lamb or pig. No 
scientist has ever as yet learned how to manufacture simple, plain, 
wholesome milk as it is drawn from the mammary glands of a 
mother, whether that mother be human or of the lower animals. 
While it is true that there is a variation in the solids that milk 
contains from different animals, the same fundamental principle 
is found in the milk of all animals. It is a product whose manu- 
facture is in the animal. With all of the knowledge thus far ac- 
quired it remains a mystery just how the mother is enabled 
to eat, digest and put into her circulatory system the nutrients she 
eats as food and throw off these nutrients through the mammary 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



glands so that her babe may be nourished. We have, however, 
learned many facts regarding this product (milk), and fact num- 
ber one is: That in order to enable the mother to manufacture 
milk a certain class of food has to be eaten and digested by her 
or she can manufacture no milk, and her offspring, although 
born strong, would starve for lack of sustenance. Thus we say 
milk is a perfect food for the young animal, and nearly so for 
the growing animal, and only a little more carbon is needed in a 
form to give the stomach distension for the fully grown animal. 

Now when we apply this knowledge to the maintenance of 
health what do we find? Simply this — that a class of food that 
will enable a mother to make milk of it in fair quantity is a health 
preserving food. And when we feed a young and growing animal 
on a class of food which if it were fed to a nursing mother would 
not enable her to convert it into milk we are feeding that young 
animal a class of food that will stunt its growth from a lack of 
proper nourishment, overtax its digestive organs by taking into its 
stomach a surplus of bulky substance that weakens its digestion, 
and it grows up an animal subject to intestinal disease on slight 
provocation. With insufficient food nutrients we have a weak 
muscular system, weak ligaments of the joints, and sometimes a 
bony structure lacking in strength. Thus it is we find many 
animals of superior breeding that grow up weaklings. They were 
well born and started well in life on the milk of the mother, 
and when sjich animal is a foal it grows a beauty so long as it 
remains with the mother, nurses her and learns to eat the class 
of food with her that she is manufacturing into milk for it. But 
what a change sometimes follows when this little beauty is 
weaned from its mother, and furnished the class of food its own- 
er ignorantly feeds it. The same rule holds good regarding the 
raising of a calf or a pig when weaned from the mother and the 
mother's milk at a tender age and a supplemental food furnished 
it. This is right and proper when wisely and intelligently 
done. But when said supplemental food is of a character widely 
different from the analysis of milk trouble follows in the form of 
a weakened digestion, with the result of sudden death, or a worth- 
less beast either as a work horse, a dairy cow, or a fattening animal. 

We especially call attention of all animal breeders to the neces- 
sity of studying the needs of the young animal, to insure a steady, 
healthy growth from birth up to maturity, and then continuing 
practically on the same line of feeding in order to maintain good 
digestion, with a consequent vigorous constitution. But how is 
the farmer to learn? is a pertinent question and a highly proper one, 
and at the present time a very easy one to answer. The agricul- 
tural press generally is furnishing the very essence or extract of 
practical knowledge on the subject of feeding animals, and the 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



experiment stations are putting fortli bulletins constantly giving 
freely to the world the results of their experiments in the feed- 
ing of animals. The agricultural press and the experiment station 
bulletins are just as essential to the progressive breeders of do- 
mestic animals as law journals and medical journals are to the 
lawyer and the man of medicine. 

In the beginning of this chapter I spoke of breeding in con- 
nection with feeding, and have thus far spoken of improper feed- 
ing. I have given the feeding first place as I have learned by 
experience that the lack of proper feeding is about twice as dis- 
astrous as the lack of proper breeding of animals as far as the 
disease problem is concerned. Remember I am not discussing 
breeding for profit or loss, but breeding as a cause of disease. As 
students of veterinary science and animal husbandry have studied 
these questions, it has been found that not far from twenty per cent 
of the horses that become blemished either in colthood or when 
they are put to work do so from an inherited weakness, or from 
a conformation not suited to the class of work required of them 
in after life. We also find from five to fifteen per cent of the 
dairy cows that go wrong in their udders do so by reason of their 
having been bred with such a conformation that to carry an udder 
without injuring it is impossible. We also find that many 
breeders of animals, who by the way are alone responsible for 
whatever the animal is, have dictated the mating or allowed the 
mating of animals with such weak physical conformation as to 
be wholly lacking in constitution. A fad that some possess on 
color lines, or milk veins, or udder conformation, leads them to 
overlook the points in an animal which denote physical strength. 
Many are the animals of the bovine family bred by faddists that 
are fit subjects for disease germs, especially of tuberculosis. We 
shall endeavor in future chapters to illustrate by pictures ani- 
mals that are subject to a certain class of disease. Having said 
this much regarding food and the mating of animals, let us con- 
sider some of the diseases which are most directly caused by 
a bad system of feeding. Under this head will naturally come 
first: 

SPASMODIC COLIC. 

This is a farmer name for acute indigestion. 

This also with tympanitic colic (bloating), or a colic called 
"sterchoral colic" by the veterinarian, stoppage of the bowels by 
farmers, or impaction. 

Now all of these are the results directly or indirectly of im- 
proper feeding. The direct cause is the inability of the stomach 
with the aid of the liver and pancreas to secrete juices which will 
digest or put in condition the food that has been eaten so that 
it can be digested. Hence it is that spasmodic, muscular pain is 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



produced in the stomach or intestines farther along. As an 
illustration of what i desire to impress upon the reader's mind, 
I will call attention to what we as humans experience. It has 
been truthfully said that "What is one man's meat is another man's 
poison." This saying has its origin in the simple fact that 
the digestion of all persons is not the same. A class of food that 
would be relished and well received by the stomach of nineteen 
men would not be well received by the stomach of the twentieth 
man, and might produce in him an attack of acute indigestion, 
with the spasmodic griping pain we call "spasmodic colic" in 
the horse. Thus it is that whenever a horse owner has a horse 
that has frequent attacks of colic he should not only seek a rem- 
edy to relieve the pain and cure the colic, but he should make 
some changes in that horse's feed. Some horses (especially the 
Eastern-bred horses of New York and New England) cannot 
eat and well digest corn in any form it may be prepared for 
them without bringing on a case of spasmodic colic. Yet all 
horses of the Middle West are largely fed on corn. It is not good 
judgment, therefore, for horse owners to strive to reason that 
because perhaps twenty or even forty horses are eating a cer- 
tain class of food and thrive well on it, all horses can eat 
the same class of food without making them sick. Thus it is we 
advise some change in the feed to be made in every case where a 
horse has had frequent attacks of colic. But this in my years 
of practice has been the hardest thing to get horse owners (espe- 
cially farmers) to do. They have corn, rye, wheat or buckwheat 
in plenty, while oats are scarce with them. Thus it is they de- 
sire to feed whatever they have in the greatest quantity, and when 
the horse is made sick by reason of feeding it they are re- 
luctant to change, but seek a remedy to relieve the horse for 
the time being, then continue to feed him just the same as before, 
with the result many times of large veterinary bills or a dead 
horse. 

Farmers as a rule seek remedies and igncre causes. Were 
it not for this we veterinarians might sometimes go hungry for 
jobs. By far too many people, when they learn the remedy used 
in curing their horse of colic, flatter themselves that they have 
the veterinarian's secret, when in fact they have in hand only 
what may fail as the case may reach a stage when the remedy 
is not capable of conquering the disease. As a home remedy in 
a case of spasmodic colic, none stands ahead of a tablespoonful 
of good ginger, the same of common baking soda, dissolved or 
mixed in a pint of hot water and given while still warm. This repeat 
in half an hour in case the animal is suffering much pain. As a 
more efficient remedy for horse owner's use, to keep as a gen- 
eral stable remedy, the following is a good one: It is made by 



OP FARM ANIMALS. 



f 




J I"- ^*« *v - -v u - ■ 



No. 1 — The type of udder that is subject to Garget. — [v* ' y".'/' ' J] 




No. 9 — Road horse with weakiif^b^ in lore legs. — [Sec page '>l] 
9 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



mixing together two ounces each of tincture of ginger, sulphuric 
ether, tincture of opium and spirits of niter. Tlien add one ounce 
of essence of peppermint. Give of this two tablespoonfuls in a 
pint of water. Repeat in a half-hour if not relieved. When re- 
lief takes place and the animal lies quiet, stop giving. Never 
be frightened when the animal lies down and stretches out flat 
on his side. Put a blanket on him and let him alone, even if he 
lies for several hours, unless he really has passed all cure and is 
down never to rise again. It is a good symptom that the pain haa 
passed over, and recovery is taking place. Always feel en- 
couraged when a rumbling is heard in the bowels in a case of 
spasmodic colic. Never be in haste to encourage a horse to 
eat when recovering from any bowel disease. Many a horse 
is killed by a relapse of the disease from over-feeding after hav- 
ing passed through the critical period of the disease. Never be 
afraid to give the horse a few swallows of water when suffering 
from colic of any kind. 

CATHARTICS AS A CURE OF COLIC. 

Some veterinarians high in authority have advised the giv- 
ing of aloes as a cathartic as the first dose in a case of spasmod- 
ic colic, but such has not been my experience. There is no need 
of a physic until we can quiet the pam. Then as the safest rem- 
edy for the farmer or general horse owner, I much prefer a pint 
of pure raw linseed oil. As its cathartic effect is mechanical 
and not by reason of exciting spasmodic action of the muscles 
of the intestinal canal, as a rule no physic is called for at all. In 
a case of common or spasmodic colic plenty of water given in 
small quantities, together with laxative food like a feed of three 
quarts of scalded wheat bran, with a handful of ground flaxseed 
added, will be all that is needed. When the means and reme- 
dies advised do not relieve the suffering brute, and a good vet- 
erinarian is within reach, the safer way is to have him see the 
animal, when more potent means may be used by him. But 
drastic or extremely potent drugs are never safe in other than 
skilled hands. 

TYMPANITIC OR BLOATING COLIC. 

This species of colic in animals, especially horses, is but one 
form of spasmodic colic. It is a consequence of food that has 
been eaten which is not properly digested, and a fermentation 
is set up which involves gas to an extent which distends the 
stomach or large intestines, sometimes to a degree which causes 
death by suffocation before the veterinarian can be got to see 
the patient. Hence it is highly important that farmers living 
miles, sometimes, from the city or town where the veterinarian 

10 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



is located be enabled to do something to relieve the sufferer 
before it becomes too late to save his life. In this chapter I will 
only speak of a treatment for the horse, reserving the treat- 
ment for cattle for a future chapter. When the fermentation is 
going on solely in the stomach tablespoon doses of common bak- 
ing soda with a stimulant like a teaspoon of ground black pepper, 
mixed in a pint of warm water, will many times prove an effi- 
cient remedy. A more potent one, however, is a half-ounce of the 
carbonate of ammonia, dissolved in a pint or more of cold water 
and poured down the throat. Repeat in twenty minutes if bloat- 
ing continues. But alas, the stomach form of tympany (gas 
formation) in the horse is not the common but the least common 
form of the trouble. The part of the intestinal canal known 
as the colon is the point where the gas does most of its deadly 
work, and is beyond a point where remedies given by the mouth 
have great effect. Hence it becomes necessary for the farmer 
to have some instruments on hand or he is powerless to do any- 
thing when the veterinarian is not to be had. Now I care not 
if the farmer owns only a team of horses and two cows, he 
needs to own a good metal syringe, with a pipe six inches 
long, and also a smaller pipe, the syringe holding not less than a 
pint. It can be had of instrument makers, or any druggist can 
order it at a nominal cost. This syringe and a bucket of warm 
Boapy water with a handful of common salt added, used as a 
rectal enema, will save, if used in time, many a horse suffering 
with Tympanitis (bloat) before the veterinarian can drive five 
miles with his treatment (called a trocar) to tap the distended 
colon. This trocar, by the way, we shall speak of later on in 
discussing diseases of cattle, when it can be safely used by 
farmers. But it is an instrument that requires a skilled hand to 
use in tapping the horse. Again the syringe will be the needed 
instrument in the cleaning of punctured wounds and answer 
all practical purposes, in the treatment of Tympanitic Colic, when 
used at the beginning of the bloat. 

STERCHORAL COLIC, CAUSED BY CONSTIPATION. 

The third and last species of Colic that we shall speak of 
is known by various names. The veterinarian calls it Sterchoral 
Colic, or a colic as the result of constipation or mechanical ob- 
struction through the stomachs of the cow and intestines of the 
horse. Sometimes it is named for short Straw Colic. Its general 
cause Is the habit the animal owners have of supplying no laxa- 
tive food through the long winter months, feeding day after day 
on dry fodder, hay or straw regardless of the nutrition these 
foods may contain. In some instances the animal is turned to a 

11 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



stack of straw and because it eats voraciously of it tlie owner 
tliinks tlie animal is doing finely, as it is always full and always 
hungry for more food. Always full but never fed, and con- 
stantly starving! But whether the dry food is fairly nutritious or 
not, the fact of its being dry necessitates the secretion of more 
of the bile from the liver, the pancreatic fluids and gastric juices 
to digest it, and unless the animal is fed more nutritious food 
in the form of grain, or the animal has exceedingly strong diges- 
tion, the time will come when there is a weakening of the 
functional duty of the liver, the pancreas, and the secretive pow- 
ers of the intestines. Then we begin to see constipation of the 
animal, and later a dull, continuous pain manifest in the abdom- 
inal region. The horse will stand and paw, and occasionally look 
around at his sides, sometimes lie down and stretch out at full 
length and groan, then get up and begin pawing again. In such 
a case if the ear is placed to the side of the abdomen, no sound 
Is heard of the intestines contracting and relaxing, producing 
what is known as peristaltic action of the bowels. In fact diges- 
tion has stopped and unless it can be set in operation within a 
limited time an inflammation will set up, and we have a case of 
peritonitis (inflammation of the bowels) to contend with, which 
is a disease beyond the skill of the ordinary farmer. The animal 
owner should use his knowledge and skill in preventing serious 
ailments, and this is manifestly true in the treatment of all forms 
of Colic, before the more deadly disease peritonitis or enteritis 
takes place (inflammation of the bowels, in farmer language). 
Now comes in the treatment. What shall it be? The digestion 
has stopped, and may be in a semi-paralytic condition. The all- 
important thing is to secure bowel movement, and many skilled 
men in medicine actually aggravate the trouble, and sometimes 
cause the death of animals, when not at all in a serious condi- 
tion, by their extreme desire to see a bowel movement. Drastic 
purgative agents are used, which cause muscular contractions 
of the bowels, in a striving to force a dried mass of indigested 
coarse food through them before this mass is so softened as to 
be put in a condition to pass through the alimentary canal. 
When aloes or aloin is given we do not in any way soften this 
mass of dry substance. We only excite the liver into secreting 
a little more bile and bring on muscular contractions of the 
bowels. We therefore condemn active physics in the treatment 
of sucli cases, and advise the use of agents which act mechani- 
cally more than actively. Thus we have in either castor or pure 
raw linseed oil the best and safest remedy for the farmer to 
use. Every farmer should keep on hand not less than one gallon 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



of pure raw linseed oil. Give a pint of this at a single dose, add 
to it a tablespoon of . good ginger, to act as a stimulant. Give 
the horse, or cow either, all the water it will drink, and offer the 
water frequently. Repeat the oil in two hours, and in a severe 
case every hour, and put in two teaspoons of the spasmodic colic 
remedy. Here again we have use for the syringe. Use this by 
injecting a half-gallon or even a gallon of warm, soapy, slightly 
salted enema, and use it as often as every half-hour, until a 
natural rumbling is heard in the bowels, and the animal ceases to 
paw and manifest other symptoms of pain. In recovering from 
this species of colic, there is never the sudden let-up of pain and 
quick recovery that mark the two preceding species of colic. 
There may be momentary spasms or a griping for even twenty- 
four hours, before all symptoms of disease have passed over. 

AFTER TREATMENT. 

The treating of all animals after having suffered an attack 
of either of the kinds of colic mentioned is of fully as much im- 
portance as the treatment during the immediate attack. Many 
an animal owner in his haste and desire to see his animal well 
again, or get him to work, will strive to do it by seeing if he 
will not eat a bunk full of hay, or a full feed of grain. Right 
here I desire to especially caution the reader. Always put the 
animal on a stinted ration for at least three days after a re- 
covery from the active stage of the disease, and always prepare 
that so that it will be easily digested. As to the kind of food 
I am not so particular. If the animal has a voracious appetite 
be doubly careful about over-feeding. In case there is but little 
desire to eat anything at all set your wits at work and hunt up 
some class of food that he will relish. It may be a sour apple or a 
carrot, a burdock leaf or a corn husk, or a quart or two of wheat 
bran, whole wheat or ground oats. As a remedy to stimulate 
the appetite use twenty-five to fifty drops of fluid extract of nux 
vomica, given in a spoonful of water on the tongue, three times 
a day. 

DISEASES PRODUCED BY EXCESSIVE FEEDING. 

Thus far we have spoken of disease as a result of either im- 
proper foods or foods fed unwisely. "We shall now speak of a 
disease caused by the improper feeding of a good food. I refer 
to the disease known to veterinarians as 

AZOTURIA. 

To horse owners it is known under different names 
such as "black water," "sweating colic," or "kidney stiffness." 

13 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



The voidings from the kidneys during an attack are very dark 
in color, sometimes nearly black, and always have a strong 
smell of ammonia, thus the name black water. As sweating 
from the start takes place, and usually some abdominal pain is 
present, it quite naturally would be given the name of sweat- 
ing colic; and as the animal always suffers more or less muscular 
stiffness, and the urine is high colored, it could well be named 
"kidney stiffness" when one knows no other name to give it. 
Even up to within fifty years the veterinary profession had no 
real knowledge of the cause of this disease. When the sufferer 
was afflicted to the extent of being unable to stand on its feet it 
was called paralysis as a result of spinal congestion, which was 
true. Just what caused the congestion veterinarians did not 
know. But as knowledge has been gained along the lines of di- 
gestion and assimilation of foods the cause has become per- 
fectly plain, and the means of prevention should be known by 
every horse owner, although other animals than the horse are 
subject to it, particularly rapidly growing lambs and pigs, which 
will be spoken of in a special chapter later on. What we say 
now will especially apply to the horse. 

Now I desire every reader's attention, as it is of especial 
importance to him that he understands to a degree how all 
food is used up in the animal system. As an illustration I will 
call attention to the fact that there is a constant wearing out 
of muscular tissue going on in all animate bodies, and the food that 
is eaten is constantly building up what is being torn down in 
the animal system. When we are doing hard physical labor with 
the horse we all know that it must be fed on a more concen- 
trated and more nutritious food. Hence the horse that is worked 
is fed grain to keep up his strength, and also to keep him from 
growing thin in flesh. All horse owners or horse users have 
learned this fact. Yet many are ignorant of the manner in 
which the food nutrients are taken care of by the digestive 
system. Digestion can be considered as only a chemical change, 
produced by a mingling of the bile from the liver, after food has 
been moistened by the saliva in the process of mastication, with 
the fluid from the pancreas and later with the gastric juices. 
These combined so dissolve the food as to permit the nutrients to 
be sucked up into the blood and carried to various parts of the 
body to build up the tissue that is being torn down by the labor 
the horse is performing. Now in the case of a horse that is laboring 
every day and is fed on a nutritious class of food, all goes well 
with him, as he has nutrition to build up what the labor is tear- 
ing down. But stop work even for a day, and full feed the horse, 



14 



O:^" FARM ANIMALS. 




No. 10 — The type mo^ subject to Tuberculosis.— [.Sec /jaye 02] 




No. 11 — Good dairy type, with strong vitality, yet with|udder subjed to Garget. — [.Sec jxige i 

15 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



Uien what takes place? This nutritious food is being digested 
and taken up by the blood, but thei'e was no labor performed 
to break down any tissue of the body, so there the nutrients are 
in the blood, semi-coagulating it. A part of the nutrients may 
be stored up in making fat and muscle, but there cannot be 
enough of this to anywhere near use up the surplus food nutri- 
ents. Now what is to be done? How is nature to get rid of it? 
The horse is fed his regular full feed of grain and more of the 
nutrients of it are taken into the blood, so that it becomes more 
and more loaded with unappropriated nutrients of the food it is 
eating. The liver from the idleness of the horse fails to secret© 
bile enough to convert this excess into urea, so that the kidneys 
can carry it off as urine. The horse as he remains idle suffers 
no inconvenience whatever. His limbs may ache like a person's 
limbs when he eats hearty meals and sits around doing nothing, 
but his blood is in what is called by the veterinarians a hyper- 
nitrogenous condition. Don't try, please, to pronounce this word 
or your tongue may get hung on a center as engineers find their 
engines get sometimes. But simply reason that the blood is 
overcharged with food nutrients that nature can't get rid of. 
Now that is the exact condition the horse is in when hitched 
up to drive to town or do a day's work. He feels well and acts 
well, but start him off at a trot or even a brisk walk, and he will 
go but a short distance before he will stumble, or hang back, 
stop trotting, and appear tired, although perhaps he has not 
gone a half-mile. He soon begins to sweat, or not sweat in the 
proper sense of the term. It will be an exudation of water 
highly charged with ammonia coming out through the capillaries 
(pores) of the skin. Stop the horse and you will find him breath- 
ing very quickly, sometimes panting for breath. Put your hand 
on the muscles of his hips and you will find them hard and tense. 
Continue to make him move and you will soon find him scarcely 
able to pick his feet off the ground. Every step seems to pain 
him. Continue to make him move or hurry him at all and he 
will fall broadside, and generally speaking be unable to get to his 
feet again, and many times never be able to stand on his feet, 
frequently die from a heart clot, or a blood clot on the brain. 
Now these later conditions need not take place at all and the dis- 
ease Azoturia need not be a serious matter at all, although 
through ignorance of its nature, and ignorance in caring for the 
animal when once attacked, it is killing thousands of horses yearly 
on the farms of the country. Far more horses die in the farmer's 
hands than in the city horse owner's hands yearly simply be- 
cause the city man uses his horses daily rain or shine, the 



16 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



farmer stops the use of his on rainy days. Now I have said it 
could be wholly and absolutely avoided. Pretty strong lan- 
guage, that, some folks will say. But I mean it, so I put 
it strong. Whenever the working horse is on full grain feed, 
when the idle day or days come cut that grain ration 
right in two in the middle, then there won't be any sur- 
plus or excess of food nutrients taken into the blood; also try 
to give him a little daily exercise. A daily run in the barnyard 
for an hour and this dread disease will not exist. But in some 
instances this may not be possible. The horse owner does not 
know in the morning whether he will work his horse that day 
or not. EspeciaJly is this true of the physician's horse or the 
livery in town. It is a hard drive for a day or several days, then 
there comes a day or several days when there is no driviiig The 
same happens on the farm, and thus it is the horse is fuliv fed. 
and when the time comes to use him he is put in harnesb dUd 
started, and then the trouble. Now it can be to an extent awr*, 
ed if he is started off slowly, and the circulation of the blooci is 
increased slowiy by the exercise. This is good policy in every 
case when starting on a drive. A rapid gait on a full stomach 
kills many a horse. But it is not our purpose to write on specific 
management of the horse, but general management. Just as soon 
as the horse begins to manifest stumbling or stiffness in his gait, 
or breaks out in a sweat, stop him. Don't drive him even a rod. 
Stop right where you are. The exercise you are giving him or 
making hira take is increasing 'he pulse beats of the heart, and 
this half-coagulated or thick bi ^d can't pass freely through 
the small blood-vessels of the mu. ular system. Hence it is that 
the horse's limbs stiffen and bee >me cramped, and he stum- 
bles. Now what makes him sweat? Nothing, only it is an effort 
on nature's part to relieve the cramp by throwing off what she 
can through the pores of the skin. Now Hark! Stop and Listen 
to what I am going to say to you. No man of medicine ever yet 
cured any disease only as he studied nature's laws and learned 
to aid nature in doing her work. Now if by exercise we are mak- 
ing the cramping of the muscles, our common sense should dic- 
tate us to stop the exercise, and not do as hundreds do, get fright- 
ened and try to hurry the horse to some near-by barn or get him 
home. If we do the chances are the cramping will increase and 
extend to the great spinal nerve, and then he loses all control of 
his limbs, and down he goes in the road with a probable spinal 
congestion (spinal meningitis) brought on by our lack of sense. 
Thus always have sense enough to say whoa no matter where 
you are, and thus put a stop to the cramping cause. 

Now nature is trying to relieve by perspiration. Put on the 
blanket and help the horse perspire, and in nineteen out of every 

17 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



twenty cases it will not be over ten or twenty minutes before 
the sufferer will be breathing naturally, when he can be walked 
slowly to some near-by barn. When the barn is reached get some 
hot water and some thick fabric (an old piece of carpet is ideal), 
it needs to be fully a yard long and just as wide, if a yard and 
a half long all the better. Wring this out of the water just as 
hot as can be safely handled, and get it on his back just as hot 
as it can be laid on without scalding. Then put one or more dry 
blankets over it. This will keep it warm and steaming for an 
hour, when it should be wrung out of the hot water, and nineteen 
out of twenty horses if thus treated will be easier and breathing 
quite naturally inside of an hour and will manifest a desire to 
eat something. Now right here is the most critical part of the 
disease. As the horse is acted upon by the hot application to his 
back and hips, there will soon be a micturition, and the first pas- 
sage of urine from the kidneys will be fairly black in color, with 
a strong ammoniacal odor. Then if the owner is a man with but 
little will of his own, and less knowledge of disease, he will get 
frightened right away. Then in most sections of the rural dis- 
tricts there are found men all-wise (in their own estimation), espe- 
cially so when there is a sick horse or cow in the neighborhood, 
and they are always on hand to give advice and recommend any 
and all kinds of herb teas, some poisonous and others harmless; 
or some fellow's doctor once gave him some sweet spirits of niter, 
and he knows that the horse will die with inflammation of the 
kidneys if something is not done right away, and at last about 
four out of five horse owners will yield to such advice unless a 
veterinarian is there with courage enough to stand up and fight. 
That black water is proof enough to convince the average horse 
owner that the kidneys must be in an awful condition and thus 
it is that many a horse when well on the road to recovery is 
drugged to death by the whims of fools and the weak kneed owner. 
Not one time in ten is any medicine needed to stimulate ac- 
tion of the kidneys. High-colored urine is not by any means an 
indication of diseased kidneys in this disease. The kidneys' office 
work is to carry off poisons in the system, and the food nutrients 
have now become ammoniacal poisons circulating in the blood, 
and the kidneys are removing them as fast as they can by means of 
the steaming and sweating the horse is undergoing from the hot 
application along his spine. An ounce dose of aloes to stimulate 
the liver and bowels is all that most cases need, and only in case 
there is no passage of urine from the bladder at all, in from one 
to two hours after the horse is taken sick, should the sweet spir- 
its of niter be given, when two ounces in a pint of warm water 
will usually be all that is needed. Perhaps once in twenty or 
more cases it is necessary to use a catheter, when of course the 



18 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



veterinarian should be sent for to use it. It is always best to send 
for a veterinarian when a good one is within reach. But my strife 
in writing this is to instruct the horse owner, so that the horse 
can be on the road to recovery before the veterinarian can be 
summoned. The period mentioned is again a critical one by rea- 
son of so many horse owners believing that as long as a horse 
is hungry for something to eat, and will eat, he is doing well. I 
have had a lot of fighting in my practice to keep the owner, and 
sometimes his wife, daughters and sons, from feeding a horse to 
death when he began to get better from azoturia. They one and 
all seem bent on feeding the horse some dainty. Now have sense, 
don't feed him anything for the next 24 hours, but give all the 
water he desires to drink. This of itself will aid wonderfully in 
helping to rid the system of the agents which brought on the dis- 
ease. Keep up the hot water on the back for a full twelve hours, 
when it can be discontinued. A horse thus treated will be ready 
for moderate work again in three days, usually in about twenty- 
four hours he can be led about for an hour or two for exercise, 
or if from home when taken removed to his home at a walking 
gait. Now I have thus far given a prevention and a treatment 
when the disease first appears and that is just as far as it is wis- 
dom for the general horse owner to go in the treatment of this 
disease. Whenever the horse has been driven until it falls it is 
one of the most serious ailments the veterinarian has to contend 
with, and not less than three cases will die where one will make 
a good recovery, as spinal disease is frequently brought on, with 
a paralysis from which it takes months to recover. 

INFLUENZA OR DISTEMPERS 

can well be spoken of under this chapter, inasmuch as the well- 
fed animal and the properly-exercised animal, yet not overworked, 
has little to fear by reason of any distempers that rage as an epi- 
demic among any of our domestic animals. The well-fed, prop- 
erly-nourished animal has a much greater germ-resisting power 
than the one that is poorly fed and kept under conditions that are 
not sanitary. The fatalities, also the sequels, are not nearly as 
great when colts or horses, also cattle, are in prime condition, and 
are exposed and contract some distemper as is the case when the 
low vitality is attacked by the same disease. By sequels I mean 
diseases like roaring in the horse, that may follow a case of com- 
mon horse distemper, strangles, laryngitis or epizootic. Even a 
common cold from exposure to a chilling blast is not nearly as 
likely to result in pneumonia when the animal is in perfect health 
from good feeding and sensible care. 

Now I have touched a subject on which there is a great va- 
riance of opinion. I refer to sensible care of farm stock. I might 

19 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



devote many pages of this little work to this subject, but think it 
best only to throw out a few hints in relation to it. A horse barn 
or a cow barn can be so constructed as to keep the air in it at 
all times at about the same temperature, and the foul gases can 
be taken out by a system of ventilation. Yet more animals in it 
suffer and die than the animals kept in a neighbor's barn whose 
ventilation is doors and windows. The parlor barn frequently has 
parlor furnishings, and it is so nicely arranged that it becomes 
wholly unnecessary for the animals to go outside at all, while 
the animals of the neighbor of necessity are turned out for a time 
daily. My practice has called me to the barns of the rich, the 
barns of the poor, and the barns of the middle class, and my ex- 
perience has been, in periods of epidemics, that the middle class, 
where the animals are well fed and turned out to get their drink 
from a trough, even in cold weather, are less likely to contract 
distempers, and have lighter attacks, than the animals kept un- 
der the so-called more sanitary conditions. It is the pampered 
child that catches diphtheria and dies, when the child that is 
reared to roughing it a little escapes. And so it is with the colts 
and calves. It is never good policy when distempers are prevail- 
ing to leave horses or cows out in a rainstorm, or to keep them out 
of doors on chilly nights, especially when the ground is wet for 
them to lie on. But it is equally as bad to keep animals closely 
confined in a stable ever so well supplied with pure air. As a 
rule the human race is too much afraid of taking exercise in 
the open air. Especially is this true when a disease of an epi- 
demic character is raging in the house or in the barn.,; The tendency is 
too great to shut down closely all avenues for fresh air to get to 
the patient. We therefore desire to call attention to the fact that 
pure air is more essential than much drugging, when an epidemic 
disease is in the horse barn or the cow stable. Those who have stud- 
ied the actions and symptoms of horses when suffering from dis- 
tempers or lung disease know that when given a close box stall 
horses will always be found with the head toward the door or 
window when given a chance. The very nature of the disease 
calls for pure, fresh air, and instinctively they strive to get it. 
Keep the body comfortably clothed and in all cases where the 
lungs are involved bandage the limbs in woolen bandages from 
knees down to the feet. As to diet, give them whatever their ap- 
petite seems to crave, only don't overfeed. We will now briefly 
speak of some of the more common distempers, beginning with 
what the farmers call the 

OLD-FASHIONED HORSE DISTEMPER. 
The veterinarian calls it strangles, as there is always a sore- 
ness of the throat which prevents the horse from swallowing water 



20 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



easily without strangling, while he may be unable to eat hay and 
perhaps w4iole grain. ]\Ieals he will rarely try to eat, as they 
require an increase of saliva from the mouth, and wheat bran 
mashes, which are so popular with many veterinarians, I have nev- 
er been able to get a horse suffering with strangles to eat. Theo- 
retically the wheat bran would be all right, but practically it does 
not work as desired. I said the sufferer had difficulty in swallow- 
ing water. I might have said that it is nearly or quite impos- 
sible for a horse to drink from a brook or from a low trough. 
But if water is placed in a pail, and held up so the sufferer does 
not need to put his nose below the lower part of his shoulder 
blades, he will manage to drink considerable water, and thus re- 
fresh himself. The water should be fresh and sweet and offered 
him from a pail every one or two hours. In some cases of this 
form of distemper there will be a swelling of the glands of the 
throat and a suppuration will follow, in which case when the swol- 
len glands beneath the jaws begin to cast off the hair, and the 
skin looks a little watery, it is good policy to lance the tumefied 
gland and let the pus out. Then with a syringe wash out the 
cavity with a one per cent solution of carbolic acid. Whenever 
the glands are greatly swollen and slow in coming to a suppurative 
stage it is good policy to use linseed meal poultices on the glands 
to hasten suppuration, otherwise no poulticing is called for. Per- 
haps nine out of ten horse owners will consider this disease the 
worst whenever there is a large degree of swelling and much dis- 
charge of pus after the glands begin to suppurate. But such is not 
the case. The most dangerous cases are those where there is no 
glandular swelling and no suppuration. The pus forms in the 
membranes of the throat, is swallowed, and frequently results in 
septicaemic poisoning of the blood, which manifests itself in drop- 
sical swelling of the limbs, or perhaps running sores on various 
parts of the body, or as is sometimes the case, an internal gland 
suppurates and death ensues after the owner thinks the horse 
fully recovered. To relieve throat soreness I have found nothing 
better than a mixture of equal parts of powdered sanguinaria 
(blood root) and powdered chlorate of potash. Mix a teaspoonful 
of this and a tablespoonful of simple syrup, and with a wooden 
paddle smear on the tongue every two hours, and to guard against 
the septic poison of the blood from the swallowed pus as often as 
twice per day make a paste of hyposulphite of soda and simple 
syrup and smear on the tongue, using an even tablespoonful of 
the soda. This will neutralize the poison of the pus or render it 
harmless in most cases. Hence, I advise the use of the soda in 
every case of distemper, be it ever so light. Avoid working the 
horse when suffering with distemper, even in a mild form, as the 
respiratory organs are all of them more or less affected, 

21 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



and a little overdoing is very apt to terminate in congestion of 
the bronchial tubes or lungs. Also when the animal is put to 
work after having recovered from the disease be careful and do 
not leave him tied in a draft or facing a strong wind. A little 
overwork or fast driving kills many a horse when he is well over 
the distemper. The twin sister to strangles is the disease known as 

LARYNGITIS. 

This can well be called a severe cold causing a sore throat. 
The same may be true of the disease known as pharyngitis. Both 
can be treated as one, on the same general principle. Steaming 
the head with the steam from pine or hemlock boughs is an old 
and very good agent to use in connection with chlorate of potash 
and blood root, already advised. A mixture of spirits of 
ammonia one ounce, oil of turpentine one ounce, and olive oil 
six ounces rubbed over the head of the glottis (throat), and along 
the windpipe, makes a good counter-irritant. Use morning and 
night, until the skin becomes a little tender, then stop its use, and 
in most cases recovery will follow under good sensible care alone. 
When there is a harsh, rasping cough, it may be well to give the 
following cough syrup, which should really be in every horse 
stable to use in case of colds. It is made by simmering together 
over a slow fire two ounces of oil of tar, two ounces of Canada 
balsam, one ounce tincture of capsicum, three ounces extract of 
belladonna, three ounces syrup of squills, one pound granulated 
sugar, one-half pint water. Constantly stir until all ingredients 
are well melted together. Give of this one tablespoonful on the 
tongue or make into soft balls with meal. About ten years ago 
a peculiar disease of a zymotic nature (atmospheric) struck this 
country, and in certain sections has become serious. I refer to 
the catarrhal disease called 

PINKEYE. 

Horsemen doubtless gave it this name by reason of the mem- 
branes of the eyeball becoming of a bright red or pink color. It 
has now become under certain conditions very serious among 
horses, cattle and sheep. It has its origin in a special micro-or- 
ganism or microbe which floats in the air. The disease is usher- 
ed in by a high temperature with a severe chill in some cases. It 
is not a disease that can be arrested by any known treatment. It 
is advisable always to cease work with the animal, place it in a 
half-darkened stable, yet free of all foul gases and well supplied 
with pure air. The eyes bathe frequently with a lotion made by 
dissolving a half-ounce each of borax and acetate of lead, and 
one ounce of common salt, in a pint of clean rain water. As a 
rule neglected cases leave the eyes weak, and when horses are 

22 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



so left they should have their eyes i)rotected by a piece of thin 
blue or brown veiling put over the forehead or the eye weakness 
may develop into blindness later on. Always give the suffering 
animal plenty of laxative food like wheat bran mashes, and leaves 
of the burdock or fresh green grass to cool the system. The more 
serious forms of epidemic diseases are diphtheria and la grippe, 
but these of necessity come under the head of diseases where all 
medical treatment should be under direct supervision of a quali- 
fied veterinarian. Another disease that comes under the head of 
being largely produced by improper feeding, and bad management 
when horses are suffering from the before-mentioned influenzas, is 

PULMONARY OR ASTHMATICAL HEAVES. 

While it is true that horses are bred with a physical con- 
formation which renders them susceptible to this class of lieaves 
(bellows heaves horsemen and farmers call it), we will speak 
briefly of it. Heaves is incurable. It is largely produced by the 
habit farmers have of feeding on hay or straw during the win- 
ter months and not enough of the grains containing more nutri- 
tion. Thus constantly is the stomach distended with bulky food, 
until the nervous structure of the respiratory organs becomes de- 
ranged. Horses suffering with heaves can be helped by feeding 
cut hay, dampened with lime water, and the grain ground into 
meal and mixed with the cut hay, never feeding more than a half- 
bushel measure full at one feed, and not less than three pounds 
of it being ground grain. If hard worked feed from four to six 
pounds of the ground grain to a thousand pounds weight of horse 
at each feed. 

CATARRHAL HEAVES. 

This class of heaves is usually a sequel to some one of the 
forms of distemper. While there is no cure for it, careful feed- 
ing on nutritious food, and from time to time syringing out the 
head through the nasal chambers with a solution made by mix- 
ing a teaspoonful of creolin in a pint of water, will help it. A 
better remedy is dissolving a tablet of Chinosol in a quart of wa- 
ter and using. When the disease is more of a bronchial nature 
than catarrhal the cough syrup advised for laryngitis will afford 
relief. 



23 



\ 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 




24 



CHARTER II 



WOUNDS AND ACCIDENTS. 

These can be spoken of only in a general way, as the extent 
and location of a wound must of necessity govern the treatment 
to a degree. When a vein or an artery has been severed and 
the hemorrhage is great, the animal will bleed to death before 
the veterinarian can be had, hence it becomes highly necessary 
for the farmer to have on hand some powerful styptic and also 
be able to take up a small artery if necessary. Four or more 
ounces of the tincture of the muriate of iron should be in every 
farmer's household to use in the stoppage of hemorrhage due to 
severed veins. Saturate cotton with this and crowd into the 
wound if a punctured one or bind on if a surface wound. This 
will effectually stop the hemorrhage of all veins except the larg- 
er ones, and will also stop hemorrhage from the smaller arteries. 
A flat piece of iron dipped in boiling water and applied to small 
arteries will stop the hemorrhage. It is preferable to the heated 
iron, as that will only sear over and the flow may break out afresh. In 
case the artery below the knees or hock is severed, in most cases 
the leg can be corded above the wound by tying a piece of soft 
rope around the limb above the wound and then with a stick twisting 
the rope so tightly as to stop the flow of blood. In case the 
hemorrhage comes from a vein tie the cord below the wound, 
then apply the saturated cotton mentioned, and bind on tightly, 
and in most cases after keeping the limb corded for about an 
hour the hemorrhage will be brought under control. In all such 
cases after the hemorrhage has been stopped leave the wound 
without further dressing for a full twenty-four hour day. Then 
carefully soak loose the cotton from the wound, and carefully 
cleanse the wound with a carbolic solution made by mixing a tea- 
spoonful of liquid pure carbolic acid in a half-pint of water, then 
saturate cotton with the following: Pure carbolic acid one ounce, 
glycerine four ounces, olive oil six ounces. This is one of the 
best healing dressings known to veterinary science. Punctured 
wounds need cleansing by the use of a syringe so as to reach the 
bottom of the puncture and destroy any possible germs that may 
have been carried into the wound, which is all important. 

LACERATED WOUNDS OR ABRASED WOUNDS. 

When there are no vessels severed of course the wounds re- 
quire no such treatment at the start as do the punctured wounds. 

25 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



In all such cases make the wound clean with the carbolic solution 
advised previously, and if there are threads of tissue or fragments 
of muscle, with clean knife or shears clip them off. This will insure 
a better and quicker healing. I am speaking now of wounds in 
the muscular tissue and not kicks on the joints of the limbs, or 
open joints or bruises made by dull calks in case of a kick by an- 
other horse. But lacerated or torn wounds in the flesh, or where 
the part has had the skin torn off, after they have once been 
cleaned by the carbolic solution and the shredded fragments re- 
moved the object should be to heal them without any pus forma- 
tion if possible, and what is known by medical men as the first 
intention. If we can aid nature to do this we have accomplished 
the very best purpose. Now please remember that no agent known 
heals any wound, nature does this. All we do is to put the wound 
in shape so that nature can heal it, and then keep the germs that 
the air is full of from infecting the wound. While the veterinarian 
may have his own special germicide and antiseptics, which he may 
prize more than others, I never have found any superior to a mix- 
ture of bichloride of mercury one ounce mixed in finely powdered 
resin four ounces. This mixture is a poison and needs to be prop- 
erly labeled as such, and kept where children or animals cannot 
reach it. Apply by dusting on the wounds, and unless there are 
watery or pus secretions do not wash off at all. It will form a 
scab over the wound. Keep flies away and give nature every 
chance to heal the wound. 

THE PICKING UP OF NAILS. 

Of late years more than formerly animals, especially horses, 
are liable to step on nails carelessly left in pieces of board, or the 
horse may half pull a shoe, and the nails that held it in place be 
on, and a puncture made in the sole of the foot or frog. The owner 
thinks that when he has pulled the nail out all that is needed has 
been done. But alas, such is not true, whenever a nail has been 
driven through the sole or frog, or any other instrument sufficient 
to bring blood, when it is withdrawn there is great danger of 
serious trouble without a sufficient opening is made to allow a 
thorough disinfecting of the wound the nail or other body made in 
the foot. Sometimes the trouble arises from the carrying into the 
foot of the germ of tetanus (lockjaw) or the imprisoned blood may 
create pus which has to work its way out somewhere, or a case 
of blood poison or canker of the foot follows, and death results 
in thousands of cases that need not have occurred had the owner 
had knowledge enough to realize these simple facts, and had 
removed the nail or other instrument, then with the blade 
of his pocket knife cut out a hole in the bottom of the foot large 

26 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



enough so that the end of the little finger could have been inserted. 
This will let out the blood, and allow any possible germs to be de- 
stroyed. While there are many germicides which can be used, none 
is superior to carbolic acid, used at a strength of one part acid 
to five parts water. Pour a little of this in the wound, then satu- 
rate cotton with it and crowd into the wound, in twenty-four hours 
remove, and pour a little more in the wound, when in most cases 
a pledget of cotton saturated with pine tar crowded into the wound 
will stay there, and in a few days there will be a filling in of the 
horn. Some use the spirits of turpentine instead of the acid. But 
the turpentine in the form that most farmers have it is not of 
sufficient potency to destroy the germ of tetanus. Many are re- 
luctant to cut a hole in the foot. A very needless fear, as a 
little cotton or oakum saturated with tar will keep all dirt out, 
and the animal can be put right to work. 

SHOULDER BRUISES AND CYSTIC TUMORS. 

If every horse owner had a suitable collar for his horse, and 
understood the anatomy of the shoulder sufficiently to understand 
where the pressure should and should not be placed, then fitted 
his collar so it really would fit, there would be no such thing 
known as hard, callous swellings or soft puffy swellings seen on 
shoulders. But these things will continue just as long as horse 
owners continue to use the old English collar and hames. Thou- 
sands of farmers in civilized countries will stick to this style of 
collar with the same tenacity that a Hindoo will stick to the custom 
of his fathers and use a crooked stick to till the soil propelled by 
a water buffalo with a stick tied across his forehead. So it is tbat 
modern styles in collars, like the Humane and Twentieth Century 
collars, will have a hard time bringing about a change, and I see 
plainly' that veterinarians will have plenty of business for many 
years to come in treating these swellings. Of late years sweat 
pads of various materials have been put in use to overcome the evil 
the ill-fitting collar is producing. To an extent they do some 
good, and in other ways they are a damage. A hole can be cut out 
of the pad and take pressure off the gall or hard swelling, and then 
relief is afforded, and some agent in the form of gall cures is used to 
heal up the sores. I will give three remedies: One is verdigris oint- 
ment, which any druggist can procure. Another is made by mix- 
ing dry white lead in raw linseed oil until it becomes a thick white 
paint and the third is a dusting powder made by mixing an ounce 
each 'of oxide of zinc, finely powdered alum and borax and 
four ounces of finely powdered starch. Dust on the raw sore from an 
old pepper box. If a large puffy swelling comes on the shoulder, 
and fills with bloody water (simply a large blood blister formed 

27 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



between two layers of muscles of the shoulder caused by the col- 
lar not fitting), there is only one way to treat it and that is to lance 
it deep enough to let the bloody water out before it dries down 
into an organized body (callus). When the lancing is done in the 
beginning, it needs no further treatment more than to syringe out 
daily with a one per cent solution of carbolic acid. In case several 
days have elapsed before the swelling is lanced, it becomes what 
is called encysted, which is the beginning of a callus. Then it 
should be injected with the tincture of iodine daily for a few days, 
until pus is being secreted liberally. Then change to the one per 
cent carbolic solution until healed. Should any proud flesh form 
in the wound made with the knife in lancing dip a camel's-hair 
brush or feather in butter of antimony and daily wet it with it 
until reduced. 

BRUISES. 

All poll evils and fistulas of the withers are no more nor less 
than the result of a severe bruise to the extent of injury of the 
tissue covering the occiput bones of the head in one case, or the 
spines running upward from the spinal column to form the so-called 
withers in the other. Now the farmer can do only a few things 
with these. The first is use either cold or hot water to reduce any 
inflammation as the result of a recent bruise. I don't care where it 
is located, whether on the muscular part of the body or on a joint, 
perhaps inflicted by a kick from another horse, use water. It is 
far superior to any liniment that can be made as a reducer or 
preventive of suppurative inflammation, which should be the first 
thing sought. An ounce of sal ammoniac and the same of common 
salt, added to each quart used, when cold water is used will make 
the water still colder. This line of treatment we especially advise 
in case of a bruise on a joint, and where possible wring cloths 
out of this salt and ammonia water and wrap the joint with them, 
changing about every hour. In case of bruise of the withers it is 
rarely known when it does occur, as the horse may roll on a 
stone in the pasture, or jam his withers against the side of the 
stall, or put his head under a bar or a gate. The same may occur in 
bruising the top of the head, so that generally speaking no one 
knows when it occurs, and the first noticeable feature will be a 
swelling. In all such cases use for a day or two the medicated 
water. Then apply a blister, none better than the biniodide of 
mercury ointment. This repeat in about ten days, in case the 
swelling does not take on the appearance of breaking out. In that 
case a competent veterinarian must be employed. There is no 
other way, as a deep lancing of the tumor is needed before a 
cure can be made. 

28 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



OPEN JOINTS. 

These can only be treated successfully by the skilled veter- 
inarian. All the horse owner should do is to keep the animal 
absolutely quiet in a stall (not in a pasture field) and never as some 
do, thinking to save expense, lead or drive the horse to the veter- 
inarian, and thus ruin all chance of saving the animal. Right here 
I will bring the horse part of this little book to a close by saying: 
In all serious cases always bring the veterinarian to see the 
patient, especially so in cases of influenzas, lung and bowel troubles 
and injuries to a joint. Many a time have I had horses and cattle 
brought to see me and the journey killed them, when if the owner 
had left them in the barn and come for me the animal would have 
been well on the road to recovery by the time I got there. While 
it may be true that moderate walking exercise will, in some cases, 
be beneficial such exercise as most horse owners give the sufferer 
kills more than the disease does. 



29 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 





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30 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 




31 



CHAF»XER III. 



CATTLE DISEASES. 

While cattle are practically immune from many of the diseases 
that afflict horses, the diseases of cattle are none the less 
important, inasmuch as milk from the cow is so extensively used 
as food for the human family, and the carcass forms a large per 
cent of the meat that is consumed. Unless the cow is in good 
bodily health she is wholly incapable of furnishing milk of a whole- 
some character for human food, or even for the rearing of her own 
offspring (in case her disease is of the mammary glands). Right 
here again I desire to say, the feeding of milk-producing cows is 
in a sense of more vital importance to the human race than the 
feeding of horses, sheep or swine. The milk she produces is simply 
a product made into a liquid form of the food she eats, the air she 
breathes and the water she drinks. Give her a rotten food, germ- 
laden air to breathe and poor water to drink, and it becomes im- 
possible for her to put into the milk pail a product of high quality. 
While the theory prevails among many scientific men that milk as 
it comes from the udder is not contaminated with germs that are 
in the udder, but with germs on the udder which fall in the pail 
during the act of milking, it is by no means a fact that germs of 
certain diseases do not actually abound in the milk before it leaves 
the milk cistern in the udder of the cow. While a class of food 
mouldy in its character can be fed to the cow, or beef animal also, 
and no evil results follow in the form of gastric or kidney disease 
as in the horse, it may in other ways prove to be a cause of fevers 
of an anaemic form, the cow becomes emaciated and may even die 
from nervous prostration or impoverished blood, due to micro-or- 
ganisms taken into her system through the food she has been made 
to subsist upon or the water she has quenched her thirst with. A 
word to the wise is sufficient without further comment. 

GARGET (MAMMITIS). 

The disease Garget, as farmers name it, Mammitis as the 
veterinary profession knows it, is one of the most common cow ail- 
ments the farmer has to contend with. It may have causes without 
number. It really is only an inflamed condition of the whole or some 
part of the udder of the cow. When the cow is in full flow of 
milk her udder is the most sensitive part of her physical system. 

32 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



Blood laden with food nutrients is determined to lier udder, and 
her udder temperature is in some instances from one to two de- 
grees higher than the temperature taken at the mouth. Now let a 
cow in full or even half normal flow of milk be allowed to remain 
out in a cold rain storm, whereby she contracts a cold and has a 
shivering fit, the chances are that she will either stop milk secre- 
tion almost entirely or her udder become highly inflamed and we 
have a case of general garget to contend with. Hence the great 
importance of keeping all cows in from such storms as a preven- 
tive; and whenever one suffers from taking a cold in any form 
doing something to break up this cold or shivering fit just as 
quickly as possible before the udder becomes inflamed is a neces- 
sity. As a home remedy a pint of good ginger tea and an all-wool 
square horse-blanket is good. And now I am going to speak of two 
very active remedies, both highly poisonous, yet perfectly safe when 
used as they should be. The one is the tincture of aconite, the 
other extract of veratrum. In buying either of these always have 
the druggist mark on the label the dose for a person, then make it 
ten times as much for a horse or a cow. The laws of all states 
compel the druggist to plainly mark it as poison. Give first above 
dose of aconite and half an hour later give a dose of the other, until 
all chill ceases, and the skin becomes moist under the blanket, 
and many a case of garget will be headed off. 

LOCALIZED GARGET. 

It sometimes happens that one or more quarters of the udder 
become hot and tense. This form of garget can be traced to one 
of the three general causes. (1) The cow may have a bad con- 
formation of the udder, as photo No. 1 will show, or be too narrow 
across her hocks, as photo No. 14 shows, and if she is a large pro- 
ducer of milk her udder will be constantly banged by her hocks 
in walking, and if made to hurry they will sometimes inflict injury 
to such an extent as to inflame one or both hind quarters. Again 
cows with long udders, when they lie down on short platforms in 
the stable so that the udder hangs over the edge of the manure 
gutter, will bruise the udder. And again such udders will lie on 
the hock joint of the leg when lying down, and the leg above it 
will lie right on the udder and bruise it. Now right here I will 
say, get rid of all such udders by breeding them out of the herd. 
Use no bull whose dam and grandam had such a formed udder. 
The better the breeding of such a bull the more sure he is to get 
heifers with badly formed udders, gargety udders veterinarians 
call them. Photo No. 3 shows a well formed udder and properly 
formed hock for a dairy cow. As a remedy for this kind of garget, 
use local treatment, hot water applied with thorough rubbing un- 

33 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 





34 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 




No. 8 — Dr. Smead showing how to relieve a choked horse by a blow on a plank 

held across the buttocks of the animal. — [.See ]>'i<je til] 

35 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



til quite dry. Then apply some of a mixture of lard and turpen- 
tine. This is a first-class home remedy, and use it twice or more 
daily, giving teaspoonful doses three times per day of the ex- 
tract of pokeroot. Now we come to another form of garget, where 
there is no inflammation whatever. It is not really garget, but 
what can be more properly called a 

GARGETY CONDITION. 

The cow has in some way received a blow on some part of one 
quarter of her udder, and while there is no visible fever or hard 
lump to be felt a small abscess has formed, and from time to time 
the pus comes down into the milk cistern (cavity at the base of 
the teat), and during the act of milking these little chunks of pus 
come out with the milk and will be seen on the strainer. Now 
this is not Garget, but what is known as a gargety condition of 
the milk, due to the small abscess formed in the udder gland. 
Now please do not understand me as saying that all lumps in milk 
that may be seen on the strainer are pus cells. Lumps or chunks can 
get in the milk from a stoppage of the follicles (tubes) in the 
udder, and there will be seen when these follicles clear themselves 
small organized pieces of casein (cheesy deposit), but such milk, 
whether there be pus in it or even the cheesy deposit, is wholly 
unfit for human food, as in the act of straining all that is done 
is to take out the larger chunks of pus and casein. In most cases 
if each teat is milked separately it will be found that one quarter 
of the udder alone is responsible for this condition. When this 
is found, then the milk from the remaining quarters can be saved 
as human food. It has been a long-time practice among dairymen 
to give saltpeter in tablespoon doses, yet I have doubts as to 
whether any drug that may be given ever had much effect upon the 
abscess or injury in the udder gland. Quite recently the G. P. Pilling 
& Sons Co. of Philadelphia have invented a double syringe, whereby 
the milk cistern of a cow suffering with this condition can be 
cleaned and disinfected, and in many a case where the cow would 
lose one or more quarters of her udder if not daily syringed out 
with some harmless solution for a time it can be saved. We 
therefore advise every dairyman to get either this or some other 
garget syringe and use as may be needed. As a solution a heap- 
ing teaspoon of common baking soda dissolved in a pint of boiled 
water is a good one. 

THE USE OF MILK TUBES. 

Right at this time, I consider it fitting to speak of the use 
and misuse of the milk tube. When a farmer owns even a half 
dozen cows it rarely happens but that one or more of them will 

36 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



in some way or manner get a teat injured, so that it becomes im- 
possible to milk this teat by hand, and the tube has to be resorted 
to, sometimes with the result of spoiling the quarter with the tube 
by the time the wound is healed. Now this need not occur, and 
will not occur, with a proper tube, properly used. 

THE PROPER TUBE. 

Milk tubes are found on the dealer's counter in four sizes, 
namely: two inches, two and one-half inches, three inches, and four 
inches in length, and the size in diameter is always in proportion 
to the length. They are all of one price, and four men out of five 
will buy the biggest they can get for the money. Thus it is a tube 
four inches in length, and full one or two sizes larger than the 
milk channel in the teat, is bought to use on a cow with a teat 
not over three inches long. Thus again about four cow owners 
out of five think the farther up the teat they can push the tube 
the more milk they will get, so they push the oversize tube up the 
teat and wound it, then punch the end up into the udder gland and 
inflict a wound there also, and the next time they try to milk 
the cow they find the teat and udder hot and tense and no milk 
in it, simply spoiled by the tube that was as unsuited to use as a 
crowbar would be for a toothpick. There are very few cows in 
whose udder a three-inch tube will not reach the milk cistern and 
draw all the milk there is in it, and in most cases a two and 
one-half inch tube is long enough and large enough. 

HANDLING THE TUBE. 

The unseen things in this world are the dangerous ones, and 
no one can see a germ any more than he can see the force that 
drives the trolley car. The user of a milk-tube may carry on his 
hands germs enough to spoil all the cows' teats on the 
farm, yet not see one of them. Yet he wonders why, when he care- 
fully ran the milk-tube up the teat of the cow, it inflamed 
the teat so much. A dead easy thing to understand when we 
learn about these things we can't see. The user wiped his hands 
off on the milk-tube, and then shoved the tube up the teat of the 
cow, and wiped the germs off on the lining membranes of the teat 
and in her udder. Now hot water is cheap, and if one will take 
hold of the base of that milk tube and dip it in boiling water for 
an instant he will kill every germ on the tube. Wait a half minute 
and the tube will be cool enough so as to not scald the teat, then 
insert it up the teat, and draw the milk, after which rinse the 
tube in cool water, then hot water to get the milk off it, and a 
milk tube can be used in safety indefinitely and not inflict injury 
to the teat. 

37 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



cow POX OR INFECTIOUS GARGET. 

Most veterinarians class these two very distinct diseases to- 
gether as one, but they are not so by any means. True cow pox is 
an eruptive fever, with pustules forming on the udder and teats, 
which will in about a week scab over and heal under the scab, and 
the cow will be well. But the disease which may look to be cow 
pox, and is not, doesn't get well. It forms a blister much like that 
of cow pox, then scabs over as the blister breaks, and then 
instead of getting well forms a phagedenic (spreading) ulcer and 
gets worse all the time. Again this latter disease does not always 
locate itself on the teat, or udder, but is more liable to infect the 
teat at the tip end of the milk channel, that point being moist. 
There a tiny blister forms, and does its spreading right up the 
milk channel, and goes into the udder and ruins the quarter if 
not immediately headed off in its work. The first noticeable symp- 
tom is when the milker sits down to milk the cow will cringe or 
kick when the milk is first started. The next time she will do 
more cringing, and soon the teat will be found hot and it is hard 
to squeeze the milk through it, coming in a much smaller stream 
than usual. When it gets to that stage there is little hope of sav- 
ing that quarter of the udder. But it can be easily headed off in 
the beginning by the proper use of the following: Carbolized olive 
oil, made by melting one ounce of crystal carbolic acid and mixing 
when melted with ten ounces of pure olive oil. Use this on the end of 
the teat, or on all blisters or sores on the teat at each milking. Then to 
prevent the germ from working up the milk channel, with a small 
glass syringe inject a teaspoonf ul up the teat and milk it out again. 
This will so grease the milk channel as to prevent the working 
up of the germ. It is always worth the trial, even after the teat 
becomes hot and the milk hard to draw. 

HOW THE INFECTIVE GERM IS CARRIED. 
The milker conveys the disease from cow to cow through the 
hand. He milks an ailing cow, then milks a well one, and carries 
the germ right to her teats. Again no one knows just where the 
germ starts, but there are good reasons for believing on the floor 
of the stable when cows are kept on it. Therefore always 
scrub the floors with boiling water, then sprinkle air-slaked lime on 
them, to destroy possible germs of the disease. 

BLOODY MILK. 

This may be the result sometimes of tuberculous disease of 
the udder. Therefore always ascertain the quarter it comes from, 
and examine closely for any hardened lumps in it, and if found 
have the cow tested with tuberculin. If no such condition exists 



38 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



consider it due to injury of the udder from thumping it with her 
hocks in fighting flies, etc. Spray the cow with a good fly killer and 
give her teaspoonful doses of powdered sulphate of iron, mixed 
with common salt, twice daily, mixed in a feed of meal or bran, until 
the blood ceases. With heavy milking cows practice milking them 
three times a day. 

LUMPY JAW (ACTINOMYCOSIS). 
This disease is becoming more and more common. It is due to 
a specific fungus found on various plants or pasture grasses. Its 
name is "Ray Fungus," and under the microscope it looks like a 
cluster of Indian war clubs. It sometimes locates in the glands 
of the thBoat and internal glands, but generally either in the glands 
of the throat or the tongue, and through any sores about the teeth 
it works down to their extremities and infects the inner part of 
the bone. Through much experimenting carried on by the 
Bureau of Animal Husbandry at Washington, D. C, it was found 
that when iodide of potassium was given in from one to two 
drachm doses twice daily for two weeks, then once per day for 
about two weeks longer, ninety per cent of cases where the glands 
were the seat of the fungi would cease to go on with the enlarge- 
ment, and the disease stop from doing serious damage until such 
time as the animal could be made fat for beef. And in cases 
■where the bone was involved fully sixty per cent of cases could be 
headed off. The surgeon may save advanced cases by an opera- 
tion, but the farmer would better give the potassium iodide, and 
use a blister on the enlargement as soon as it is noticed, which 
repeat every two weeks for a few times. No better blister is found 
than this: Compound one of the ointment of iodine crystal, pow- 
dered cantharides and the biniodide of mercury. Prepare it 
by mixing a drachm each of crystal iodine, biniodide of mercury 
and powdered cantharides, in three ounces of lard. 

CHOKING OF CATTLE. 

Cattle frequently get choked on various things, and the farmer 
should know how to relieve them, as in many cases death will take 
place before the veterinarian can get to see the sufferer. When 
the choking is by reason of some spherical body, like an apple or 
a potato, it is no serious thing to relieve the animal; with some 
body like the section of a cabbage stump it is far more serious. 
Yet when the farmer possesses a fair amount of sense and judg- 
ment, and does not get excited and lose his head, few animals need 
die from choke. There are two forms of choke. The most common 
Is the high choke, in which the substance the animal tried to swal- 
low is lodged at any point of the gullet between the mouth and 

39 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 




No. 7 — Dr. Smead shows how to drench a horse easily. — [See page 61} 




NTT^Method of puttinsj the rubber hose down the cow's throat to reheve choke or bloat. 

40 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



where it enters the body. The so-called low choke is the one 
where the body is lodged beyond the visible part of the gullet. 
There are three very inexpensive instruments or rather home- 
made devices which in a case of emergency will answer every pur- 
pose, and every farmer needs them. First is a piece of inch rub- 
ber hose, costing about sixty-five cents. It needs to be full six and 
a half feet long (See photo No. 4), as it is about six feet from the 
mouth to the entrance of gullet into the first stomach of the 
grown cow or ox. Yet many think when they have pushed an 
obstruction down the gullet out of sight it is far enough, when 
in fact it is only about half way to the stomach or rumen 
(paunch farmers call it), which lies back of the center of the 
body of the animal. Now before going farther I desire to call 
attention to one fact, and that is no rigid body like a whip-stock, 
rake-handle or other similar device, can ever be passed from the 
mouth to the rumen of a cow, calf or ox. The gullet takes a 
turn upward soon as it reaches the thoracic cavity (lung cavity), 
and soon after the whip-stock or other rigid device enters this 
cavity it can follow the gullet no farther, and if it is pushed will 
go right through the gullet and kill the animal. Yet scores of 
ignorant editors of the agricultural press are giving space to just 
such nonsense that ignorant writers desire to put in the paper. 
All devices must of necessity be flexible, and while it is not sup- 
posable that farmers would own the expensive instrument known 
as a probang, they can own a piece of rubber hose one inch in 
diameter, which is second only to the probang for utility in various 
ways, which will be spoken of later on. First it is hollow, and 
liquids can be poured or syringed into the end of it that sticks 
out of the mouth. After the hose has been shoved down the 
gullet this is a very great advantage, as when it has been shoved 
down to the obstruction some raw linseed oil or melted lard can 
be poured into the protruding end of the rubber hose and by 
gravitation will run down to whatever obstructs the passage, when 
the obstruction being greased with oil or lard will be, by gentle 
pushing of the hose, passed into the rumen, and the job will be 
over before the veterinarian can be phoned and get on the ground 
in case he lives three miles away. The next instrument is a bull 
snap costing twenty-five cents, to place in the nose to better hold 
the animal when inserting the rubber hose. And the last is an 
oblong ring, made of half-inch round iron, large enough to put 
the hand and arm through. An old neck-yoke ring of large size, 
flattened down a little, can be used in an emergency case. But 
it is better to have the blacksmith make one about ten inches long, 
so as to be held easily in the mouth by an assistant when the 



41 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



operator is at work with this in the mouth. The farmer can 
safely pass his hand down the throat of cow, ox or horse, and 
where the obstruction is in the throat pull it out with his hand. 
In case of an ordinary sized cow the arm of a man will be long 
enough to go down the gullet a few inches. Now hark ye all: 
Never try to push an obstacle down into the rumen that can be^ 
felt from the outside. Never, as some have done, have an assistant 
hold the fence maul on one side while the operator hits the 
other side with a mallet, to mash the obstacle. A blow that would 
mash a potato or a hard apple, say nothing about turnips or cab- 
bage stumps, would mash the gullet of the animal, and seriously 
injure it if not cause its death. Yet this foolish, yea torturous, 
treatment has found its way into print in numerous agricultural 
journals. Now what is the sensible, rational way? Pour a little 
oil or melted lard down the gullet. The oil of course cannot go 
any farther than the obstruction, but it will grease the obstruction, 
whatever it may be, and enable one to manipulate the obstruction 
from the outside and bring it up into the mouth, where it can be 
reached easily by the hand, and bfought out. In case of the low 
choke of course recourse must be had to pushing it down after 
greasing, always with the piece of rubber hose mentioned, which 
being hollow and cup-shaped to an extent, will not slip by the 
obstruction. 

I BLOATING OF CATTLE. 

Bloating of cattle is very common on farms of the country, 
and every cattle owner should know how to relieve it. No animal 
should ever die with clover bloat when the farmer is at home, or 
even his wife or boy ten years old. Of course all farmers should 
avoid turning cattle on fresh wet clover or alfalfa when they are 
hungry. In case the one in charge was on the watch for bloat 
and took notice of the bloat commencing, the putting of a smooth, 
round stick about three inches in diameter in the cow's mouth, 
and tying it with a cord put over the head so as to hold it in place and 
keep the mouth open, and the animal striving to get it out, will 
so work the muscles of deglutition as to keep the gas coming out 
of the rumen before it accumulates to the extent of closing the 
valves at the lower end of the gullet. But this having been 
neglected in nine cases out of ten the piece of rubber hose men- 
tioned can be run down the gullet to the rumen and let the gas 
out in short order. But the time may be when the bloated animal 
is in a field a mile or more from the house, and would die before 
one could get to the house and get the hose. What shall be done? 

42 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



TAPPING. 

Every farmer or farm boy should be taught how to properly 
tap a bloated cow or ox. It really is one of the simplest opera- 
tions known to veterinary science. There is one point, and one 
point only, where an incision can safely be made by a novice into 
the rumen and let the gas out, and that point is on the left side 
of the animal, as one stands behind it facing toward it. In a full 
grown animal it is one hand's breadth from the back bone, and half 
way between the hip and the last rib. Note the place where my 
hand lies in the picture. Photo No. 5. The proper instrument is 
a trocar, costing seventy-five cents. It is no better than a large 
sized pocket knife, only as the trocar has a tube (canula) which 
can be left in the wound until the gas has all escaped, while if the 
knife alone is used, one will need to turn the blade crosswise 
of the cut made with it, and hold it in place until the gas has 
escaped. Now inexperienced men fail to relieve by tapping the 
animal when they have only a knife, by reason of three methods 
of using it. The first is: They use too small a blade or too 
short a blade, or perhaps do not insert it full length. In an or- 
dinary cow or ox it is full three inches or more through the skin 
and abdominal walls into the rumen (paunch), so one need never 
be afraid of inserting the knife too far. The trocars are made 
six inches in length, with a canula (tube) five and one- 
half inches in length, while the farmer's pocket knife blade is 
rarely over three inches in length, and will barely reach the 
paunch when plunged into the animal full length. Other failures 
occur from not inserting the trocar or knife at the proper angle. 
Some will hold the trocar or knife nearly horizontal, others will 
hold it nearly perpendicular. The right angle to insert the knife 
or trocar is at an angle that would, if long enough, come out at 
the forward teat of a cow. Note photo No. 6, The gas will be 
reached every time when the trocar or knife is plunged deep 
enough, but it may be as said, the trocar may be at the house a 
mile away when the farmer finds the animal nearly dead from 
bloat, then of course the pocket knife must be used, and if any 
farmer is not onto his job well enough to own a pocket knife, he 
had better throw up his job and go to work in some man's sand- 
bank. 

BLOATING CALVES AND SHEEP. 

The same general principles should be used in the treatment 
of them as in older cattle, always in tapping when needed. Do it 
on the left side and never on the right side no matter which 
side of the animal may be distended the most. There is only one 



43 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



point in all ruminating animals where the rumen (paunch) is at- 
tached to the abdominal walls and that is the one marked in the 
picture No. 5. 

TAPPING THE HORSE. 

Tapping the bloated horse is the business of the veterinarian 
alone, and should never be attempted by the unskilled man. 



CHAPTER IV, 



BOVINE ABORTION AND STERILITY. 

For fully a century have veterinarians been laboring to discov- 
er the cause and a remedy for cows falling to conceive, and to learn 
why many of them drop the foetus prematurely, and yet the trou- 
ble has been steadily on the increase. Now this is casting no 
slur on what investigators have done. They have learned much, 
but there is much yet to learn. Some have worked on the theory 
that some specific germ is causing the farmer the trouble he is 
having with his cows. Others are working on antitoxins and 
serums to inject into the system of the cow to render her immune 
from the effects of the germ. Honorable veterinarians have thought 
they had found specifics that would enable the farmer to stop the 
trouble in his herd, and a lot of empirics have set their wits to 
work and got up nostrums by the score and sold them to the 
gullible. Now with the exception of the last named I feel like 
giving due credit to all that has been done. It all tends toward 
the solution of the problem, even though it has not solved it. I 
have no specific to offer the reader. On the other hand I have 
to tell him I don't think any will ever be found, yet I hope I 
may be wrong in this conclusion. While specific germs may 
and do cause some of the trouble, it is not the maximum but the 
minimum cause the writer has had to contend with. The cow 
herself must be studied, and means used to manage her by which 
we can prevent sterility and abortion. In brief we must take her 
as she presents herself to us at the present time; and take her 
into consideration as a physical being, and a very abnormal pro- 
duction of man, subject to certain conditions even as the human 
female, especially shock from fright, sense of sight and smell. 

We must realize that our modern cow has been so bred as 
to produce milk, not only in sufficient quantity for a calf four 
months in the year but she must produce enough to well rear two 
calves for four months, then keep it up for four months longer, 
and then produce enough to feed one calf for a period of two 
months, or be condemned as an unprofitable dairy cow. Now all 
this ability has been bred and fed into the cow by the skill of 
man, but in the accomplishment of it we have dwarfed and ren- 
dered less vitally strong the organs of reproduction, which are in 
correlation with the mammary glands. The cow that will produce 
milk only in a limited quantity for five or six months of the year 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



under good care and feeding never aborts except as the result 
of severe injury. Her general vitality is good, her mammary 
glands small, and her reproductive functions strong. She gets in 
calf readily and carries it full time. She can witness extraordi- 
nary sights, and Inhale offensive odors, and it M^ill have no effect 
upon her sympathetic nervous organization, as she is of a low 
nervous organization just as the peasant woman who can produce a 
strong healthy babe every sixteen months, needs no mid-wife and 
is ready to perform her usual labor in a week's time, while the 
more refined races of the earth, with a higher nervous organiza- 
tion, need to be on constant guard or an abortion will be the 
result instead of the much desired living healthy child. Now this 
is plain talk, my readers. It is the refined, improved cows and 
heifers in our dairies that give us trouble in getting in calf and 
then in keeping it up yearly until they have passed the age of 
usefulness. It is this condition that confronts us more than it is 
a micro-organism. The organisms (germs) that cause sterility 
and abortion I consider as the least to fear. We have 
learned that carbolic acid given internally for a prolonged period 
will destroy the germs of abortion that exist in the blood or 
uterus, while dilute sprays of it on the vulva and vaginal injection 
will destroy the organisms. But drugs will not cure inherent 
predisposition. A nervous child must be carefully cared for to 
prevent convulsions, and this unbalanced cow of a high milk pro- 
ducing function must be fed and cared for on the line of a re- 
alization, that she, like the nervous child, must be fed to make 
her strong in her weak parts. It may be considered in a sense an 
inherent weakness, brought about by breeding. When we have a 
cow capable of producing ten thousand pounds of milk annually 
we should realize that all such animals, or the heifers from such 
animals, have a corresponding weakness of their reproductive 
organs. Heifers fail to desire to breed, and when they do breed 
they fail to conceive. 

This brings us to another contributive cause, namely, the 
rearing of the calf. This in far too many instances is done ou 
the extreme plan. The little young thing is either fed beyond 
reason to make a show animal of it, kept closely confined in a 
pen or stable, given all the new milk it will take, and grain or 
meal as soon as it will partake of it, with the result that it be- 
comes loaded with kidney fat to the extent of encasing the re- 
productive organs in fat, so that conception is impossible, or if a 
male it is impotent. We see more of this among the beef breeds 
than among the dairy breeds. On the mass of dairy farms, how- 
ever, it is the reverse. The price milk commands in market in- 
duces the owner to strive to rear the heifer calves on just as 
little milk as possible and supplement with hay teas, calf meals and 



46 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 




No. 2 Well-bred (>alf being raised on Hay Tea 




No. 15 — A cow that is never sick, luver lia> \jai>;ei. »iii iai>t- a eali every ye; 
and run her owner in debt $25.00 a year for feed. — [■Sec prtge fSS] 

47 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



various condiments that are on the market. Many of these are 
good, and I don't condemn them when the calf has arrived at an 
age to live largely on solid foods. But when the calf-raiser starts 
In to raise a calf at a week or even three weeks of age on this 
class of supplemental food he starts a calf on life's journey with a 
low vitality, an impaired digestion (like the calf shown in photo 
No. 2), sometimes with the result, in case it is born with an 
inherent weakness of the uterine organs, that we have a heifer that 
is either sterile or aborts on slight provocation. Or in case she 
drops a living calf at two or two and a half years of age and 
largely sends the nutrients of the food she eats into the milk 
pail, she fails to conceive or aborts if she does. I might take up 
time and space in further discussion on this line of thought, but a 
hint to the wise is sufficient. A strong animal at maturity must 
be started right in infancy or it disappoints the owner when It 
grows up into cowhood. This thought can well be put in print 
and nailed up in many a farmer's cow stable. Exercise and grow- 
ing, digestible food in plenty the first year of a heifer's life would 
make it a yearly breeder of calves instead of a yearly aborter. 

Another thought on this line I will present: By far too many 
farmers think that when their cows or heifers are once safely 
in calf they can be turned in a back woods pasture to fight flies 
and subsist on any kind of herbage they can find, in most in- 
stances with a scanty supply of grass. When winter time comes 
the wheat straw stack and a nubbin of corn will be sufficient. 
But it is not. There is growth to be made in this heifer, and a 
life in her uterus to support and develop and give birth to, and 
you need not be surprised if she aborts at about the sixth, sev- 
enth or eighth month in pregnancy from sheer weakness of the 
vital functions to grow the mother and develop the offspring. 

SYMPATHETIC ABORTIONS. 

In a preceding paragraph I spoke of a sympathetic nervous or- 
ganization. This needs explanation; no one, however, can fully ex- 
plain it. A person is run over by the cars and his limbs mangled 
and is brought into the presence of perhaps twenty fellow beings. 
Some will faint at the sight, others will have a sickness at the 
stomach and vomit up the contents of it, all will be shocked, and 
perhaps not five out of the twenty could pick up the bleeding per- 
son and care for him. Sickening odors have the same effect on some 
persons. Thus it is that a pregnant woman of a high nervous organ- 
ization can never aid safely a member of her own sex at 
time of child birth without danger of bringing about a premature 
birth in her own case. This, in a homely way of expressing it, is 
what the effects are on the nerves of sympathy. Now we must 
come to a higher knowledge of the cow than many of us have, 

48 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



wheu we assume to treat her so as to avoid abortions in the herd. 
We must come to understand that even the brute is endowed with 
a sympathetic nervous system, with some of the senses, especial- 
ly smell, much more acute than the human. So that when we 
send dogs after or otherwise frighten the pregnant cow we may 
by reason of that fright cause her to abort. Then we must realize 
that when an abortion occurs from any cause in the herd other 
cows may from the effects of the sight and odor be so acted upon 
as to produce an abortion in them. Thus we must immediately 
remove the aborting cow from the herd and keep her away until 
no segments of the placenta are being passed from her. In high-grade 
herds if the aborting cows are allowed to remain with the herd a ver- 
itable epidemic through sympathy may prevail in the herd and yet no 
germ be present. The foetus must be removed out of sight and smell 
of the herd, and not as some do throw it out on the manure 
heap. In all cases use antiseptics and germicides. Carbolic acid 
in one per cent solution is the most commonly used as vaginal 
Injections once a day. Creolin is also good, but of late the Ger- 
man germicide, sold under the trade name of "Chinosol," I prefer 
to either, the carbolic acid or creolin being perhaps preferable to 
use as an outside wash, on account of the odor counteracting the 
odors of the cow v/hen the placenta or fluids are being passed. 

FOODS AS A CAUSE OF ABORTION. 

In these days of milk craze, when both the scientist and the 
farmer are striving to get the most milk out of the cow possible, 
concentrated foods rich in protein, which can be purchased the 
most cheaply, are being fed to excess on some dairy farms. Even 
scientists sometimes look only at the large per cent of protein 
the food contains, and overlook digestibility and palatability, and 
to induce the animal to eat it advise that cheap molasses be fed 
with it as a seasoning. Stock food proprietors frequently season 
up by-products rich in protein so as to make them highly pala- 
table, and for a time they may cause a larger milk flow. Yet all 
the time these foods may contain active medicinal agents which 
injure digestion or agents which directly affect the uterine organs, 
and when a cow has a predisposition to abort produce an abor- 
tion. Cottonseed meal contains in a limited degree some of the 
active emenagogue effects of the root of the plant (meaning the 
power to produce uterine excitement and contraction). Thus it 
is that the farmer needs to know of what the rich concentrated 
protein feeds he buys are composed, and to always feed cot- 
tonseed meal and the combinations containing it sparingly to his 
large milk-producing cows. It is these precautions that must be 
considered as well as the looking for germs when we combat abor- 
tion in the herd. And without this done by the farmer himself 

49 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



there is little hope of the scientist or veterinarian ever doing very 
much toward helping him out of his trouble. The first thing ev- 
ery farmer should come to understand is to distinguish the differ- 
ence between the germ form of abortion and an abortion that may 
be from accident or from sympathy. 

HOW TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE ABORTIONS. 

Whenever a cow aborts from the action of specific germs that 
attack the placental membranes the foetus will usually be found 
covered with a yellowish slime when it is first dropped and the 
placenta will be found more or less covered with tne same and the 
cotyledons (buttons the farmer calls them) will be found in a 
partly putrid condition. Again the placenta will usually be passed 
in from two hours to two days, and if one will part the lips of 
the vulva he will usually find small red pimples or small ulcers 
on the walls of the vagina. In all such cases lose no time in 
taking the cow and fetus from the sight and possible smell of the 
herd, and flush out her uterus with a solution of carbolic acid or 
creolin, making it of a strength of a tablespoonful of either to 
three pints of warm soft water. Or better still if it can be got- 
ten use a tablet of Chinosol dissolved in a quart of water. Con- 
tinue to use daily until all segments of the placenta and slimy 
fluids have ceased to be seen passing from her. Then don't breed 
her again inside of two months. As a rule cows thus treated will 
get in calf again as readily as if they had not aborted. 

Whenever a cow aborts from accident or uterine weakness the 
slimy appearance of the foetus will as a rule not be present and the 
placental membranes will remain attached to the walls of the 
uterus. In all such cases remove the cow from the herd just the 
same as if the case were of germ abortion and treat her just the 
same as if she had given birth to a fully developed calf and 
the placenta had been retained, which we speak of next, and such 
treated cows will be as likely to again breed as if they had not 
aborted. But such cows may need more special care in feeding 
to keep them vitally strong during pregnancy or from weakness 
of the uterine organs they may again drop the calf prematurely. 

GIVING GERMICIDES INTERNALLY IN CASES OF SUSPECTED 
GERM ABORTIONS. 
It is as yet an undecided question as to whether the germs 
which produce the germ form of abortion abound in the blood 
or inhabit the uterus alone, but it matters not as far as the 
farmer is concerned where the germs abound so that he can erad- 
icate them from his herd. Thus it is that all suspected cases of 
germ abortion should be treated internally with some agent which 
can be given with safety. Without going into details I will say 

50 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



that carbolic acid given internally in from twenty to forty-drop 
doses for alternate months during pregnancy has proved very ef- 
ficient. It can be safely given in case it is properly given, and 
the proper way to give it is to put the dose of acid in a half-pint 
of water and use the water to dampen a mess of wheat bran 
or meal. Give once per day for a month after the cow has drop- 
ped her calf, then skip a month and give again after she is safe- 
ly in calf and continue through her period of pregnancy and she 
will be often cleaned of possible germs and be a safe breeder 
afterward. 

TREATING THE BULL. 
In all cases where it is thought that the bull has served an 
infected cow thoroughly wash his sheath with the solution named 
or better still use the Chinosol, which all druggists should keep. 
The bull may be the means of spreading the germs through the 
herd if not treated, and it is such a simple thing to render him 
perfectly safe that no farmer should neglect to treat him in every 
case there is reason to suspect infection. 

RETENTION OF THE PLACENTA. 
It sometimes happens that nature's laws have in some un 
known way been interfered with, and the placental membrane 
(afterbirth) still retains its adhesion to the walls of the uterus. 
Various medical agents have been advised by the older authori- 
ties to bring on uterine contractions and thus effect the expul- 
sion of the placenta, but in candor I don't believe that any of them 
has any effect whatever in loosening the attachments. In a case 
where the placenta was already detached and was retained simply 
by lack of uterine contractions sufficient to expel it the remedy 
may have been of use, and then I think a pint of ginger tea or 
a half-pint of spirits of wine, reduced one-half with boiling w^ater, 
would accomplish just as much as stronger remedies like ergot. 
It is therefore well to give the ginger tea, or the spirits, and re- 
peat it in about six liours, when in case there is no delivery of 
the placenta it can be considered as a case of retention from the 
natural adhesions not yet being detached. The former custom 
was to employ the veterinarian or cow quack to take them away, 
but no man did ever yet entirely remove them, as some of the 
attachments could not be removed, and of necessity had to remain 
to putrefy or rot away. Sometimes the neck of the uterus closed 
and locked these segments (fragments of the placenta) in the 
body of the uterus, when the only way nature had of getting rid of 
them was by absorption of the purulent pus into the blood. Thus 
many a case of septic fever (blood poison) was produced, render- 
ing the milk flow for not less than six months wholly unfit for 
human food with the chances of the cow never conceiving again. 

51 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



But the modern, safe and better way is not to endeavor to re- 
move the placenta at all. This method the author of this little 
book claims to be the first to advise. With the discovery of germ- 
icides and antiseptics a new field was opened up, and now we can 
safely allow the placenta in a cow to remain indefinitely, or until 
natural conditions take place, by simply once daily injecting, with 
a proper cattle syringe, some antiseptic solution which will pre- 
vent germ inoculation, and in from two to eight days, as a rule, 
the whole mass will be passed, and the cow left in as perfect 
physical condition as though the placenta had been passed soon 
after the birth of the calf. As an antiseptic solution use a one per 
cent solution of carbolic acid or creolin, made by mixing a dessert- 
spoonful of either in a quart of warm soft water, using at as 
near blood temperature as possible, or a tablet of Chinosol dissolv- 
ed in a quart of water. It has the advantage of creating no smart- 
ing sensation to the cow. Every farmer needs a horse and cattle 
syringe fully as much as he needs a hoe and a shovel. 

CATTLE AND HORSES OVER-EATING OF GRAIN OR MEAL. 

On the best managed farm a cow or a horse will sometimes get 
loose and get into the corn crib, oat-bin or a bin of meal, and 
help itself to several times as much as can be digested. 
The danger to be apprehended depends largely upon the kind of 
meal or grain the animal eats. In case it is oats a cow may eat 
her fill and it is rare that injury follows. In case it is corn in the 
ear it is rare that the cow or horse is made sick if properly treat- 
ed, which will be spoken of later on. But in case it is wheat or 
rye there may be acute indigestion followed with a stiffness, which is 
called grain founder, which may remain permanently, and so it is 
with the meals. Ground oats may give the horse the colic, but rare- 
ly produces impaction by drying up the secretions of the stomach 
and digestive tract. But corn meal, being so concentrated and 
devoid of fiber, is quite sure to become packed in the second, third 
or fourth stomach of the cow and in the stomach or intestines 
of the horse unless proper means are promptly used to prevent 
this condition. A very common opinion exists among farmers 
that no water should be allowed either horse or cow that has en- 
gorged itself with grain or meal of any kind. This belief 
doubtless has its origin based on the fact that one engorgement 
always calls for another, and when an animal has engorged itself 
with twice or thrice the grain or meal that it can digest its 
depraved appetite produces a depraved thirst, and if allowed to 
go to the creek or trough and help itself to all the water its thirst 
calls for it will add another engorgement of water to the engorge- 
ment of grain or meal. Then there are two engorgements to con- 
tend with, and the animal generally dies. Thus it is the farmer 

52 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



jumps to the conclusion that all water must be withheld, which 
is nearly as fatal to the animal as if it were allowed to go to 
the creek or trough and fill up on water. Now we stated in the 
beginning of the article that the danger lay in the baking of the 
meal, by reason of there not being fluids enough to moisten it, say- 
ing nothing about there being enough digestive fluids to digest 
the surplus mass of grain or meal. Common sense is or should 
be the basis of all action. If there is grain or meal in the stom- 
ach that can't be digested, and is liable to soon absorb all the gas- 
tric fluids, common sense would say give fluids enough to keep 
this surplus meal from absorbing all the fluids and becoming bak- 
ed in the stomach or intestine. Give water enough to make the 
meal into a thin slop, so that it can pass through all the stom- 
achs and go out its way through the intestinal canal. Water given 
judiciously will accomplish more in doing this than all the drugs 
in a drug house. 

WATER USED JUDICIOUSLY. 

That means furnishing it to the animal in small quantities, at 
intervals of about every fifteen minutes. Two quarts at a time 
every fifteen minutes, until the thirst is quenched, is worth more 
than pounds of cathartics. It is simply the mechanical action on 
the meal, making it into a slop, so that it will go on its way through 
the intestinal canal and not bake. In the water each time place 
a teaspoonful each of ginger and common baking soda, to warm up 
the stomach and prevent fermentation. Animals thus treated will 
be enabled to get rid of enormous quantities of grain and meal 
and do no practical harm to them other than spoil their appetite 
and stop the milk flow, if a cow, for a few^ days. 

TREATING THE ANIMAL AFTER BAKING HAS SET IN. 
But it sometimes happens that the animal gets loose when 
no one sees it, and it may be hours before we know of it. and 
when the animal is found it is in pain. Baking of the meal has 
already commenced. Then what is to be done? A more serious 
condition now exists. We must stop the baking, or paralysis of 
the muscles of the digestive tract will soon take place. The thirst 
will be present, only more severe than if water had been given at the 
start. But give the water and the ginger and soda, with the 
same judgment and discretion, and in connection with it give 
about every hour a pint of pure raw linseed oil, and that 
is also given more for its mechanical effect than for its medicinal 
effect. It will by its mechanical effect soften baked meal and at 
the same time hasten its passage through the intestinal canal, 
and save many a case before the veterinarian can get on the 
ground. 

53 



CHARTER V. 



STIFF LAMBS. 

It sometimes happens that when farmers are taking what may 
well be called ideal care of their ewes that are dropping their 
lambs in the early spring months some of their best lambs are 
found down and unable to rise on their feet, or if they are helped 
up will seem weak in their legs and perhaps walk but a few steps 
and drop down again. At first the lamb seems to suffer no pain 
and will be greedy to nurse the mother. Later on if nothing is 
done to relieve it a quick breathing is noticed and a total inabil- 
ity to stand, no desire to nurse the mother, and death soon fol- 
lows. After giving the subject some years of study I can come to 
no other conclusion than it is wholly due to practically the same 
causes which produce the disease known and heretofore spoken 
of as azoturia in the horse, only the effect of the surplus food of 
the lamb may be different. My study of the disease has convinced 
me that it can be considered as wholly a surplus food disease, as 
we always find the lambs that are afflicted to be the single lambs 
of the flock and those whose mothers carry a full udder of milk 
and some to spare. Again it is always at a time when the little 
fellow is beginning to eat grain with the mother and also at 
the period when the ewe's milk undergoes a rapid change, for be 
it known that a ewe's milk changes in its fat content sometimes 
from as high as an 8 to 12 per cent butter fat content to about 
a 4 per cent content between the first week and the fourth or 
fifth week, while the other solids in the milk remain about the 
same. We find this condition: the lamb is taking more food nu- 
trients into its system than it can grow fast enough to make use 
of and its blood becomes in a condition quite similar to that spokeil 
of in the horse with azoturia. The lamb may be seen running 
and skipping and in an hour is paralyzed. Never have I known of 
twin lambs being affected nor the lamb that had scant milk supply. 
Thus it is we say that the disease is caused by too much food 
and a violent change of the mother's milk which renders it some- 
what constipating. So we can reason that a surplus amount of 
unappropriated food nutrients together with constipation is the 
primary cause. Avoid the trouble by placing the large-milking 
ewes and their lambs by themselves and feed less milk producing 
food to them. Manage to have some succulent food for the 
flock at hand just before lambing time and feed it until the flock 
goes to pasture. 

54 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



HOW SHALL AN AILING LAMB BE TREATED? 
If discovered soon after being taken or beginning to walk 
stiff give it a tablespoonful of castor oil and a teaspoonful of 
Bweet spirits of niter. Tliis is to quickly move the bowels and 
kidneys. Then put the lamb to soak in a tub of water as hot as 
the hand can be held in for a full half-hour, immersing the whole 
body except the head and holding it in the water, meantime add- 
ing hot water so as to keep it hot. When taken out of the water 
rub it as dry as possible and wrap it in a woolen blanket and 
many a case will be quickly on the road to recovery. Of course 
a lazy man is never expected to do this and will not consider 
it worth while. 

A20TURIA IN PIGS. 
Pigs are also prone to the same disease, especially when kept 
closely confined and fed all the nitrogenous food they will 
eat, for be it known that a pig will eat as a rule twice as much 
food any time as it can grow fast enough to make use of, and 
that is the only reason I know why they call him a hog when he 
grows up. Azoturia in the pig assumes a somewhat different 
form from that of other animals, seeming to take on more of a 
rheumatic form followed by a paralysis of the hind limbs due to 
the spinal cord becoming involved. The same general treatment 
as for the lamb can be used in the young pig. The older one give 
the physic and follow with stimulating embrocations to the back 
and loins, a strong decoction of Cayenne pepper is good. Also 
follow the physic with from ten to forty-grain doses of 
Balol three times per day in some cooked oat meal. A mixture of 
spirits of ammonia one part, olive or linseed oil four parts rubbed 
along the spine is a good embrocation. But as a hog is a hog 
any way you can fix him and hard to doctor it is just as well to 
make him into pork as to spend time in doctoring him. 



■ i 



E5 



CHARTER VI. 



SPRING MANAGEMENT OF THE BREEDING FLOCK. 

About March 1st every year trouble begins on many a flock 
owner's farm. His ewes have apparently wintered fairly well, and 
their condition, as far as flesh is concerned, is by no means bad, 
but about two, three or four weeks before the expected birth of 
the lamb a ewe is noticed to be standing with the head pressed 
against the side of the barn or feed rack. Sometimes she will be 
stupid, and if she attempts to move fast she will fall, and seems 
very weak. Sometimes she is unable to see clearly, and appears 
to be dizzy. This condition slowly grows worse, and in from one 
day to a week she is dead. The older works on sheep husbandry 
and farmers in general called it "grub in the head." This con- 
clusion was arrived at by means of more or less of the larvae (grub) 
of the gadfly being found in the nasal chamber when a post-mortem 
was held. For several centuries this was a common belief. Yet 
like many another belief it was found sadly in error when more 
study was given to sheep and their necessities learned. 

In a brief way I will say: My personal investigations have 
always found the cause to be constipation. The flock has been 
wintered wholly on dry food, sometimes lacking in variety. The 
sheep by nature is a constipated animal and it is an animal, bar- 
ring the goat, whose appetite craves, and physical needs require, 
a greater variety of food than any other of our domestic animals. 
A succulent food of some kind is well-nigh a necessity in win- 
tering a breeding flock of ewes in order to avoid the conditions 
named, and several others mentioned later on. In England there 
is not a day in the year that the breeding flock does not eat a 
succulent food of some kind, and the English shepherds never are 
troubled with loss from this source. This country Is now well 
supplied with English breeds of sheep, but in most cases the Eng- 
lish methods of feeding and care did not come over with the im- 
portation of the sheep. Thus it is that we find the English or 
mutton breeds suffering more from this cause than our American 
breeds of sheep. 

Now I have said that constipation caused the death of the 
sheep. But few realize what the results of constipation may be in 
a pregnant animal, especially the sheep. A dozen or more dis- 
eases may be the outcome of simply feeding a pregnant ewe four 
months on dry hay, fodder and grain. Some will say, "I keep 

56 



OF F^ARIM ANIINIALS. 



salt where the flock can help themselves to it all the time." This 
is good as far as it goes. But no sheep can eat salt enough to 
take the place of succulent food. In England roots, cabbage or 
kale are fed, but in this country corn silage can be made to fill 
the bill in place of the roots, although not the equal of the roots 
or cabbage. But one or the other must be furnished in order to 
avoid loss by death of many ewes just before giving birth to the 
lamb. Now I wish to be fully understood in what I am saying. I 
mentioned variety of food right in connection with a succulent 
food, and I spoke of corn silage taking the place of roots. Neither 
corn silage nor roots of any kind must be wholly depended on. 
They can be depended on to fill one place in the winter feeding 
of the breeding ewe, but by no means must they constitute the 
whole or sole food for the ewe. Many jump to the conclusion that 
by reason of a certain food being a good one for sheep it can be 
fed as the sole food in wintering the flock. Were the shepherd 
to strive even for a few days to feed the flock of pregnant ewes 
on corn silage or roots of any kind, he likely would set many of 
the flock to scouring, and some ewes would prematurely give birth 
to their lambs. As a part ration succulence is essential, but dry 
foods are just as much needed as are succulent foods, and one 
won't take the place of the other. 

Another, important consideration in the feeding of the flock 
to avoid disease later on is the feeding of the dry foods. When 
the owner has clover or mixed hay, straw of various kinds, corn 
fodder or bean fodder or any other roughage it is not good policy 
for him to start in the winter feeding his poor feed first, thinking 
to keep the clover or mixed hay until about lambing time. The 
ewe when she comes from the pasture needs just as good feed- 
ing to keep up her bodily health as at any time during the winter. 
It is all important to keep the ewe strong and vigorous every day 
and not allow her to lose in flesh or strength for a single day. 
The sheep is not an animal that can be starved the fore part of 
the winter and regain what was lost later in the winter or early 
spring. If she needs clover hay in March she needs it in December. 
All hay or no hay, all straw or no straw at all is the cus- 
tom when the flock owner is compelled to feed cheap or unmar- 
ketable roughage to his breeding flock. Yet a large number of 
American flockmasters do this, then wonder when lambing time 
comes why the lambs are weak and there is nothing in the udder 
of the ewe to feed the lamb. The correct way and by far the most 
economical way is to feed the better food right along with the 
poorer food from the beginning of the winter, feeding the better 
food at night and in the morning feeding the straw and if corn 
stover or corn stalks are to be fed (and by the way when the 



57 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



stalks are in good condition they are by no means a poor rough 
feed), throwing them out on the ground for the sheep to pick over at 
noon when it does not rtorm. All sheep need a little grain feed, 
I care not how fleshy they may be, and the best of all grain feeds 
for the breeding ewe is oats. Young ewes may need but little, but 
older ones need feed in plenty. In this country it is safe to say 
that where one sheep is fed oats to its injury not less than fifty 
are allowed to get in low vitality for need of oats. It matters not 
what time of the day the oats are fed, but the succulent feed like 
the roots or silage is best fed in the fore part of the day. 

In some parts of the middle western and eastern states blue- 
grass abounds and when the snow does not cover the ground will 
supply two very essential things for the breeding ewe, namely, 
exercise and succulence. But right here is an illustration of the 
truthfulness of what has been said: The bluegrass is abundant, 
and is succulent, hence the flock owner depends upon it. He al- 
lows the sheep to run out on the frozen bluegrass and stuff them- 
selves upon it, but they are never fed, they are simply filled, and 
only half fed. They are plump, yet actually being vitally reduced 
in strength and prematurely give birth to their lambs, or if 
they carry them full time drop weak lambs, which the ewes do 
not own, or have no milk for them, and many a ewe dies at time 
of parturition. She has simply managed to store up vitality enough 
to carry her through giving birth to her lamb, then runs down 
and dies. Too much succulence and not enough food. All could 
have been prevented had a daily feed of good hay been furnished, 
and a liberal feeding of grain all winter long. Right here again 
is where thousands of sheep owners in this country bring loss in 
their flocks. They save the grain feeding until after the lamb is 
born, and then think to feed the ewe up into giving a good flow 
of milk when the lamb is there to nurse it — a mistaken idea. A 
breeding ewe that does not have a good udder of milk when the 
lamb is born can never be fed up into giving a large flow after- 
ward. The proper way is to feed the breeding ewe a milk-pro- 
ducing food before the lamb is born, in fact all winter long, only 
don't put her on as strong feeding as when she is nursing her lamb. 

DISOWNING LAMBS. 
Some flock owners are always having trouble by reason of 
their ewes not owning their lambs. I feel perfectly safe in saying 
that nine times out of ten when the ewe drops a single lamb and 
does not own it she has no milk in her udder to feed it. She may 
have twin lambs and fail to own one of them when she has a 
full udder of milk, but put it down as a rule that the disowning of 
lambs is by reason of no milk in the udder. And there is no milk 
there simply because the shepherd fed his flock no milk-producing 



58 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



food previous to lambing. Prevent the trouble by proper feeding 
is the best of all ways. When ewes drop their lambs in the pas- 
ture after being turned out for a few weeks before lambing it 
never happens that a ewe in good physical health fails to own 
her lamb. 

CARE AT LAMBING TIME. 
Shepherds are not made, they are born. It is the man who 
has an inborn love for sheep who makes a good shepherd and no 
other can be made into a first-class shepherd. We all in- 
stinctively drift toward the things we love in this world and the 
good shepherd always drifts to the sheep bam when the ewes 
are lambing. He has prepared his sheep barn and so arranged 
it as to have some little pens about 4x6 feet in size, so that when 
he sees a ewe is about to drop her lamb he can put her into 
it by herself. Then in case she drops twin lambs she will not 
get strayed from either of them and as a rule will own them both. 
The good shepherd is always familiar with his flock and the 
flock is familiar with him. He can go among them night or day 
without scaring them. A man not constituted to do this or too 
lazy to get up in the middle of the night at lambing time and go 
to the barn and see how his flock is getting along is not fit to 
have charge of a flock of ewes. There are many good feeders of 
«heep who are mighty poor shepherds to care for a flock at lamb- 
ing time. A little assistance a ewe may need in the delivering of 
her lamb, and a few drops of milk given soon after its birth will 
save many a lamb's life and put a five dollar bill in the pocket 
of the owner five months later on. A little intelligent assistance 
rendered at this critical time saves the life of a fine ewe. The 
man who stands around with his gloves on and lets a ewe strain 
her life away, when one leg happens to be back in the uterus, is 
no man to look after the flock at lambing time. He may have 
graduated at an agricultural college and have a degree, be able 
to preach the Gospel or practice law or teach, but he has no 
place in the sheep barn. It requires a man of more energy, more 
sense and judgment than he possesses to look properly after a 
flock of sheep. Or if he thinks his hands too delicate to take hold 
of a young lamb and rub it dry in case the ewe is quite exhausted, 
and assist it to nurse, he may be taught to play a fiddle or pos- 
sibly a piano, but he is not fitted to grace a sheep bam when the 
ewes are lambing. He may be able to write a good article for the 
press, or talk well from the platform at a farmers' institute, but 
keep him at that kind of work and don't allow him to enter the 
sheep barn. In closing this chapter it is fitting that I say some- 
thing regarding the doctoring of sheep. 

59 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



PARASITES. 

The chief enemy of the sheep in this country Is internal para- 
sites, by which I mean the stomach worm and the tliroat and 
lung worm. The first named can be kept from doing serious harmT3y 
the simple method of constantly keeping where the sheep can have 
access to it medicated salt. Salt has long been known to be 
one of the best worm destroyers and worm preventives. When 
the salt is medicated by mixing in four quarts of salt one 
pound of tobacco dust, one pound of powdered wormseed and one- 
half pound of exiccated sulphate of iron, well mixed and placed in 
a box where the flock can have access to it constantly summer 
and winter, there is little danger of worm infection. It may be 
cheaper, however, for the flock owner to buy the medicated salt 
sold under the trade name of Sal-Vet. This I know by a personal 
trial to be a good preventive of worms in sheep and the proprietors 
preparing it on a large scale can furnish it at a low price, con- 
sidering its value. Worms are so prevalent in this country that 
no flock owner should run the risk of the flock becoming infected 
when it can be so easily prevented. As a direct worm destroyer 
the best known remedies are found in the gasoline treatment and 
the coal tar creosotes. The method of giving them has been so 
frequently given in the bulletins and agricultural press that it 
would seem out of place to give it here. Again this work is put 
forth more to instruct farmers how to prevent ailments than to 
cure ailments, which must always be of necessity the business of 
the veterinary profession. The throat and lung worm is incur- 
able only as the veterinarian is called to administer tracheal in- 
jection of special drugs. The adding of a gill of oil of turpentine 
to every four quarts of the medicated salt is the best known 
preventive. 

EXTERNAL PARASITES. 

External parasites can be kept under subjection by dipping 
the sheep and lambs in almost any one of the creosote or tobac- 
co preparations on the market. The day is past and gone when 
the farmer can prepare his own dip. The manufacturer can fur- 
nish him the needed preparation ready for use for less than half 
what he can buy the crude drugs for, and the pure drug laws of 
this country practically make every dip a good and safe remedy 
to use if used as directed. 

STRETCHES IN SHEEP. 

This is practically unknown when sheep are fed succulent food 
as heretofore spoken of. When a sheep does have an attack four 
ounces of Epsom salts and a spoonful of ginger dissolved in a pint 
of warm water and given as a drench will afford relief the quick- 
est of any known remedy. 



60 



CHAF»XER VII. 



ODDS 4IVD ENDS. 

Many a farmer is ignorant of how to give a horse medicine 
in a liquid form or drench. Photograph No. 7 shows a very easy 
method. It is simply a two-tined fork, the tines of which are 
placed in the mouth so as to straddle the upper jaw as noted in 
the picture, when a man can easily raise the head of the horse, 
not extremely high, but just high enough so that the fluid will 
not run out of the mouth, when even a woman or a boy can stand 
on a box if a man is not at hand and easily pour the drench in the 
side of the mouth as you will note the farmer in the picture doing. 
Raise the head only just high enough so that the horse can 
drink it easily. When the head is raised too high it becomes 
impossible for the horse to swallow and strangling may take place. 

GIVING CATTLE DRENCHES. 

Some veterinarians have great trouble in giving cattle a 
drench, but such is not the case when it is properly done. As 
a rule when the animal is in the barn with the head in a stanchion 
all one needs to do is to grasp the nostril with the thumb and 
forefinger and the animal will stick its nose up, when the mouth 
of the drenching bottle can be inserted and the animal will usual- 
ly drink it as readily as an old toper. 

RELIEVING A HORSE CHOKED ON OATS. 

It is no uncommon thing for horses to become choked on oats 
and sometimes it becomes a serious matter. The first thing al- 
ways pour a little water down the throat, which generally relieves 
the same as it will a person who chokes on some dry food. In 
case it does not relieve have an assistant hold a piece of plank 
on the buttock of the horse as is represented in the picture, while 
you with a fence maul strike the plank a sharp blow as you see 
me about to do in photograph No. 8. 

A TYPE OF ROAD HORSE THAT USUALLY GOES LAME 
AFTER A FEW HARD DRIVES. 
Many a horse that has good blood in its veins and is consid- 
ered a flrst-class road animal goes lame when put to hard driv- 
ing on the road, or even moderate di'iving. Photograph No. 9 
shows a horse of this class. Any woman can safely drive it, but 

61 



COMMON SENSE TREATMENT 



look carefully at the fore limbs. Note the spring in the knees 
and the short, upright pastern joint. The spring of a road horse 
should be in the pastern joint and not in the knees, or the horse 
machine will not be a "laster" to use a horseman's phrase. 



THE TUBERCULOUS TYPE. 

Photograph No. 10 shows a type of cow in which veterinarians 
who have studied types of cattle find the most tuberculosis pre- 
vailing. Note. the lack of depth through the heart and the lack 
of chest. While she may be a fair dairy cow her lack of con- 
stitution makes her always subject to pulmonary disease. 

THE STRONG CONSTITUTION TYPE. 

Photograph No. 11 shows the type of cow of great constitution 
and a first-class dairy cow, a little deficient in her udder conforma- 
tion, making her somewhat subject to garget, also parturient apo- 
plexy. Note her large nostril, her large jaw, her prominent chest 
and great power of digestion. It is rare indeed that we find 
a cow of this conformation suffering from tuberculous disease. 
Right the opposite of the cow in Photograph No. 10. 

A FIRST-CLASS DAIRY TYPE. 

Photograph No. 12 shows a cow of well-nigh a perfect dairy 
type. Animals of this type are generally not afflicted with gar- 
get except as the result of a severe cold. The picture is one of 
a pure-bred Ayrshire. She is not presented to boom the breed, 
but to show what the type of a dairy cow that is somewhere near 
perfection must look like, and at the same time have no inherent 
tendency to disease of the mammary glands and lungs. Photo- 
graph No. 13 shows the rear view of a pure-bred Guernsey heifer 
28 months old, in milk three months, with an average daily record 
of 36 pounds of milk testing 5.2 per cent of butter fat. The pho- 
tograph shows the correct form of thighs and hocks so as to make 
proper room for an udder not liable to injury. 

NO ROOM FOR UDDER. 
Photograph No. 14 shows a fairly good dairy type of cow, but 
it will be noted that she is so narrow across the thighs and hocks 
as not to have space enough to well carry her udder and she is 
constantly producing stringy milk as a result of injuring her rear 
udder with her hock joints. All such types should be bred out to 
prevent veterinary bills and bad milk from time to time. 

62 



OF FARM ANIMALS. 



A TYPE OF COW THAT IS NEVER SICK AND NEVER PRO-, 
DUCES ANY BAD MILK. 
Photograph No. 15 shows the type of cow that I am sorry to 
say is found on many farms of the country. They are never sick 
and their owner never has to call the veterinarian. In fact the 
owners of such cattle are always boasting that they always doctor 
their own cows. In case one loses its cud he gives it a slice of 
salt pork and in case a wolf gets in one's tail he splits it and puts 
in some salt and pepper to kill the wolf or drive him out. Or if 
perchance one may have hollow horn in the spring contracted 
from having a hollow belly all winter, he bores the horn and pours 
turpentine in the ear to make her shake the horn pith back again. 
So you see that he has no use for the veterinary profession and 
will call them all a pack of fools, myself included, for writing this 
little book. He never milks his cows during the winter as the 
cow never has any milk in her udder to take out. She may pro- 
duce three thousand pounds of milk per year that will test 3 
per cent butter fat; while she always consumes none too good a class 
of food she always costs her owner from $15 to $25 more per year 
to keep her than she produces him in milk. Look her over and 
see how she compares with the cows of the preceding photographs. 

[THE END.] 



63 



II 19tt 



X 



One copy del to Cat. Div. 



DEC IS J97J 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




